This property determines how white space is handled during the load and save process.

If PreserveWhitespace is true before Load or LoadXml is called, white space nodes are preserved; otherwise, if this property is false, significant white space is preserved, white space is not.

If PreserveWhitespace is true before Save is called, white space in the document is preserved in the output; otherwise, if this property is false, XmlDocument auto-indents the output.

This method is a Microsoft extension to the Document Object Model (DOM).

The following example shows how to strip white space from a file.

Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Xml

public class Sample

  public shared sub Main()

    'Load XML data which includes white space, but ignore
    'any white space in the file.
    Dim doc as XmlDocument = new XmlDocument()
    doc.PreserveWhitespace = false
    doc.Load("book.xml")

    'Save the document as is (no white space).
    Console.WriteLine("Display the modified XML...")
    doc.PreserveWhitespace = true
    doc.Save(Console.Out)

  end sub
end class

#using <mscorlib.dll>
#using <System.Xml.dll>
using namespace System;
using namespace System::IO;
using namespace System::Xml;

int main()
{
    //Load XML data which includes white space, but ignore
    //any white space in the file.
    XmlDocument* doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc->PreserveWhitespace = false;
    doc->Load(S"book.xml");

    //Save the document as is (no white space).
    Console::WriteLine(S"Display the modified XML...");
    doc->PreserveWhitespace = true;
    doc->Save(Console::Out);
}

The example uses the file book.xml as input.

<!--sample XML fragment-->
<book genre='novel' ISBN='1-861003-78' misc='sale-item'>
  <title>The Handmaid's Tale</title>
  <price>14.95</price>
</book>

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98, Windows CE, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Xbox 360, Zune

.NET Framework

.NET Compact Framework

XNA Framework

Reference