Format XML in Visual Studio

Here’s an easy tip for formatting XML in Visual Studio which apparently isn’t very well known.  There are times I find myself using Visual Studio to view/edit an XML file, and the source XML is tightened with no line breaks (for whatever reason) after the nodes.  Below is one example.

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<BrowserInfo><Browser><Name>Microsoft Internet Explorer</Name><Path>“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”</Path><Resolution>0</Resolution><IsDefault>True</IsDefault><DDE><Service>IExplore</Service><TopicOpenURL>WWW_OpenURL</TopicOpenURL><ItemOpenURL>“%s”,,0xffffffff,3,,,,</ItemOpenURL><TopicActivate>WWW_Activate</TopicActivate><ItemActivate>0xffffffff,0</ItemActivate></DDE></Browser><InternalBrowser><Resolution>0</Resolution><IsDefault>False</IsDefault></InternalBrowser></BrowserInfo>
     

You can use the Format Document (Ctrl+E, D) command from the Edit->Advanced menu to nicely format your XML document:

This results in a much nicer formatting of the hierarchical information:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<BrowserInfo>
  <Browser>
    <Name>Microsoft Internet Explorer</Name>
    <Path>“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”</Path>
    <Resolution>0</Resolution>
    <IsDefault>True</IsDefault>
    <DDE>
      <Service>IExplore</Service>
      <TopicOpenURL>WWW_OpenURL</TopicOpenURL>
      <ItemOpenURL>“%s”,,0xffffffff,3,,,,</ItemOpenURL>
      <TopicActivate>WWW_Activate</TopicActivate>
      <ItemActivate>0xffffffff,0</ItemActivate>
    </DDE>
  </Browser>
  <InternalBrowser>
    <Resolution>0</Resolution>
    <IsDefault>False</IsDefault>
  </InternalBrowser>
</BrowserInfo>