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I just came across with a problem using XmlDocument.LoadXml.

The application was crashing, giving the following error:

"Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1"

After inspecting the XML and finding nothing wrong with it, I googled a bit and found a tip to use XmlDocument.Load instead of XmlDocument.LoadXml.

I have tried it and it works perfectly.

My question is: What is the difference between the 2 methods and what could have cause one to work and the other to fail?

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5 Answers 5

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XmlDocument.Load is used to load XML either from a stream, TextReader, path/URL, or XmlReader. XmlDocument.LoadXml is used to load the XML contained within a string.

They're fundamentally different ways of loading XML, depending on where the XML is actually stored. So it sounds like you were using the wrong method for where your XML is.

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27

Were you trying to use XmlDocument.LoadXml and passing in the name of a file? It doesn't do that - it assumes that the string you pass in is the XML. So you might use:

doc.LoadXml("<root><child /><root>");

or

doc.Load("myfile.xml");

If that doesn't help, could you show your failing and working code? There are different ways you could have changed from using LoadXml to Load...

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I am using doc.LoadXml method. I have xml file which also contains document type definition file. <!DOCTYPE SoccerMatchPlus SYSTEM "SoccerMatchPlus.dtd"> I have put it the SoccerMatchPlus.dtd where the xml files exist. I got error when using doc.LoadXml method like Could not find file 'C:\Windows\system32\SoccerMatchPlus.dtd'. Why doc.LoadXml method find the file in 'C:\Windows\system32 folder? Can I change its path at runtime?
I added question with title 'Invalid character in the given encoding' kindly review my question. Kindly help me to find the solution of given problem. stackoverflow.com/questions/6829715/…
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Load() loads from a certain source, whereas LoadXml() loads directly from a string

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4

Assuming your using XmlDocument.Load and XmlDocument.LoadXml in the right way this problem may be caused by Byte Order Mark.

This other question might be useful.

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Yes, this. I just discovered, the hard way, that I shouldn't convert a byte[] to a string (even if I know the encoding) before loading an XmlDocument. This was the exact reason--I was getting BOM'd. I loaded the byte[] into a MemoryStream instead, and all is well.
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The application was crashing with the following error: "Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1" I suspect you xml data does not have a root level: for example:

<area id="1"> <candidate id="0">dataata</candidate> </area> <area id="2"> <candidate id="0">dataataa</candidate> </area>

you need have at least one root level on top of the bottom levels. for example:

<areas> <area id="1"> <candidate id="0">dataata</candidate> </area> <area id="2"> <candidate id="0">dataataa</candidate> </area> </areas>

so please put one mother on the top of your level, make it grand grand mother of all children

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Line 1, position 1 is the very start of the document. It hasn't begun to look for structural validity and a doc-level element yet.

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