XML exception on loading

I have an XML file. When I try to load it using .LOAD methods, I get this exception:

System.Xml.XmlException: data at root level invalid at position 1 line 1. 

What开发者_JS百科 I have at the beginning of the XML file is this:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>

I think that string that is used for LoadXml is constructed wrong by either

• ignoring BOM and forcing wrong encoding
• reading BOM as first character
• constructed by hand altogether and first character is not <

Based on last comment I bet that code looks like (or some variation of it) instead of loading XML directly from Stream object (which will handle encoding properly):

    // My guess of how wrong code looks like! Not a solution!!!!
    StreamReader r = new StreamReader(path, System.Text.Encoding.Unicode);
    string xml = r.ReadToEnd();
    XmlDocument d = new XmlDocument();
    d.LoadXml(xml);

You should review your code that constructs the string you are using in XmlDocument.LoadXml and check if it is indeed valid XML. I'd recommend to create small program that models code that is failing and investigate the behavior.

Position 1 line 1 suggests a problem with the very first char it encounters.

I would suggest firstly confirming that no leading whitespace/other char is in there (sounds silly, but they can creep in easily).

It could also be a char encoding issue, causing that first char to not be read as a '<'.

I bet it's not there. I've found that when I've gotten this error the file or path is missing/incorrect.

Thanks for pouring in your suggestions. The problem was on the build server, the XML file was being pulled from a field called contents in a table called File. I am accessing the XML using the FileID. But the FileID is not the same as FileID on my local database. So, On the build server, I was pulling the XML from a test record which had dummy data. Hence the error. Hope I have made sense. I have fixed the issue by dynamically finding the FileID and querying the contents.