Adding a Prefix to an XmlNode Where the Prefix is Defined on the Document’s Root Element

OK, the title of this post is a little long-winded. Here’s what I ran into today [1] - it has a simple solution, but the solution wasn’t inspired from me. I had to get some help from someone to figure this out. Here’s the problem. Let’s say you had a document that looked like this:

<root xmlns:drums="http://www.drums.com">
  <count>2</count>
</root>

Now I want to add a <count> tag that is prefixed with drums - the document should look like this after all is said and done:

<root xmlns:drums="http://www.drums.com">
  <count>2</count>
  <drums:count>2</drums:count>
</root>

My first attempt was to use CreateElement() like so:

drumsCountNode = drumDoc.CreateElement("drums", "count");

But that didn’t work…

<root xmlns:drums="http://www.drums.com">
  <count>2</count>
  <count xmlns="drums">2</count>
</root>

My next attempt was to name the element all in one shot:

drumsCountNode = drumDoc.CreateElement("drums:count");

But that was no good either …

<root xmlns:drums="http://www.drums.com">
  <count>2</count>
  <count>2</count>
</root>

Finally, someone suggested I use the 3rd overload of CreateElement():

drumsCountNode = drumDoc.CreateElement("drums", "count", "http://www.drums.com");

That did the trick! Again, for those XML gods out there, this is probably child’s play. It confused the hell out of me!

[1] For those who are wondering how I ran into this, think of the <comments> and <slash:comments> elements in an RSS feed …

Published: 01.24.2005 07:37:08 PM CST

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Jason Bock

Adding a Prefix to an XmlNode Where the Prefix is Defined on the Document’s Root Element