& in XmlDocument.AppendChild

Question

I am trying to write a string out to an xml node

strConverted = strConverted + "<sup>" + Mid(strConvertMe, intC, 1) + "</sup>"

Doc = New XmlDocument()
Me.Root.AppendChild(h.BuildXML())

produces XML like this (in part):
String that was converted <sup>2</sup> more string stuff

see how the & in the string gets turned into &amp

anyone have any ideas how to stop this?

Answer 1

If the & is part of a string, it should be converted into &. That's part of XML escaping.

What are you actually trying to represent?

It would also help if you could provide more useful sample code - currently you've got three statements which aren't directly linked at all, using a completely different set of variables each time.

I strongly suspect that you shouldn't be building up your strConverted as a string in the first place - any XML generation code which contains "manual" tags is begging to be rewritten to use the API more idiomatically.

If you can give us more indication of what you're trying to achieve, we're more likely to be able to help you.

Answer 2

Keep your string from getting parsed using the CData directive:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml("<converted>" +
            "<![CDATA[" +
             strConverted +
            "]]>" +
            "</converted>");

Answer 3

If you're trying to add a sup element to your XML output, just create a sup element:

XmlElement sup = doc.CreateElement("sup");
sup.InnerText = value;
doc.DocumentElement.AppendChild(sup);