Exporting XML in a C# ASP .NET Web Application

XML (extensible markup language) is a popular format of data for importing and exporting between different applications designed using different programming languages. Since XML uses a standardized format of data, applications can easily parse the XML data to pull out specific fields, blocks, and even write their own XML files. XML is especially useful as a protocol for communicating over the Internet with applications

using (System.IO.MemoryStream stream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())

{

// Create an XML document. Write our specific values into the document.

System.Xml.XmlTextWriter xmlWriter = new System.Xml.XmlTextWriter(stream, System.Text.Encoding.ASCII);

// Write the XML document header.

xmlWriter.WriteStartDocument();

// Write our first XML header.

xmlWriter.WriteStartElement(“WebApplications”);

// Write an element representing a single web application object.

xmlWriter.WriteStartElement(“WebApplication”);

// Write child element data for our web application object.

xmlWriter.WriteElementString(“Date”, DateTime.Now.ToString());

xmlWriter.WriteElementString(“Programmer”, “Primary Objects”);

xmlWriter.WriteElementString(“Name”, “Hello World”);

xmlWriter.WriteElementString(“Language”, “C# ASP .NET”);

xmlWriter.WriteElementString(“Status”, “Complete”);

// End the element WebApplication

xmlWriter.WriteEndElement();

// End the document WebApplications

xmlWriter.WriteEndElement();

// Finalize the XML document by writing any required closing tag.

xmlWriter.WriteEndDocument();

// To be safe, flush the document to the memory stream.

xmlWriter.Flush();

// Convert the memory stream to an array of bytes.

byte[] byteArray = stream.ToArray();

// Send the XML file to the web browser for download.

Response.Clear();

Response.AppendHeader(“Content-Disposition”, “filename=MyExportedFile.xml”);

Response.AppendHeader(“Content-Length”, byteArray.Length.ToString());

Response.ContentType = “application/octet-stream”;

Response.BinaryWrite(byteArray);

xmlWriter.Close();

}