Get XML String from XElement

You can use the WriteTo method of the XElement object to an XmlWriter and this can be created in ten different ways like by giving a filename or passing a stream as output or simply giving the StringBuilder to write to:

/// <summary>
/// Generates XML string from an XElement
/// summary>
/// <param name="xml">XElement source</param>
public string GetXmlString(XElement xml)
{
    // could also be any other stream
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
   
    // Initialize a new writer settings
    XmlWriterSettings xws = new XmlWriterSettings();
    xws.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;
    xws.Indent = true;

    using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(sb, xws))
    {               
        // the actual writing takes place
        xml.WriteTo(xw);
    }

    return sb.ToString();

}
    

It is important to know that the XElement already supports ToString which generates the same results as this code, but when you want to get something else, this could be a good start.


See further information in MSDN.