XmlReader.IsEmptyElement Property

Definition

Namespace:

System.Xml

Assemblies:

netstandard.dll, System.Xml.ReaderWriter.dll

Source:

XmlReader.cs

When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current node is an empty element (for example, <MyElement/>).

C#

public abstract bool IsEmptyElement { get; }

Property Value

Boolean

true if the current node is an element (NodeType equals XmlNodeType.Element) that ends with />; otherwise, false.

Exceptions

InvalidOperationException

An XmlReader method was called before a previous asynchronous operation finished. In this case, InvalidOperationException is thrown with the message "An asynchronous operation is already in progress."

Examples

The following example displays the text content of each element.

C#

while (reader.Read()) {
  if (reader.IsStartElement()) {
    if (reader.IsEmptyElement)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("<{0}/>", reader.Name);
                }
                else {
      Console.Write("<{0}> ", reader.Name);
      reader.Read(); // Read the start tag.
      if (reader.IsStartElement())  // Handle nested elements.
        Console.Write("\r\n<{0}>", reader.Name);
      Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadString());  //Read the text content of the element.
    }
  }
}

The example uses the file, elems.xml, as input.

XML

<book>
  <title>Pride And Prejudice</title>
  <price>19.95</price>
  <misc/>
</book>

Remarks

This property enables you to determine the difference between the following:

<item num="123"/> (IsEmptyElement is true).

<item num="123"></item> (IsEmptyElement is false, although element content is empty).

A corresponding EndElement node is not generated for empty elements.

If default content has been added to an element due to schema validation, IsEmptyElement still returns true. It has no bearing on whether or not the element has a default value. In other words, IsEmptyElement simply reports whether or not the element in the source document had an end element tag.

Applies to