Given an XML stream how can one know whether it is a binary XML or non binary XML stream?

Question

Dear ladies and sirs.

I have a stream which contains some XML. The XML may either be encoded using binary XML writer (for instance obtained from XmlDictionaryWriter.CreateBinaryWriter) or non binary XML writer (like as in XmlWriter.Create).

I wish to know which reader to use - the one from XmlDictionaryReader.CreateBinaryReader or the one from XmlReader.Create. Of course, I can assume that the XML is non binary and then try and fallback to binary. This is what I do today. But I do not like this approach. I wonder if there is an API, which can guide me in the first place which reader to select.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could check the data (or the first 100 characters for example) and see if there are any invalid XML characters and if you don't find any then use the current solution - try XmlReader.Create first and fall back to XmlDictionaryReader.CreateBinaryReader.