Exclude XML directive from XslCompiledTransform.Transform output

I'm using an XsltCompiledTransform to transform some XML into a fragment of HTML (not a complete HTML document, just a DIV that I will include in page generated elsewhere).

I'm doing the transformation as follows:

StringBu开发者_运维百科ilder output = new StringBuilder();

XmlReader rawData = BusinessObject.GetXml();
XmlWriter transformedData = XmlWriter.Create(output);

XslCompiledTransform transform = new XslCompiledTransform();

transform.Load("stylesheet.xslt");

transform.Transform(rawData, transformedData);

Response.Write(output.ToString());

My problem is that the result of the transform always begins with this XML directive:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>

How do I prevent this from appearing in my transformed data?

EDIT:

I'm telling the XSLT that I don't want it to output an xml declaration with

<xsl:output method="html" version="4.0" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

but this seems to have no effect on the directive appearing in my output.

Interestingly, both my XML data source and my XSLT transform specify themselves as UTF-8 not UTF-16.

UPDATE: The UTF-16 seems to be appearing because I'm using a string(builder) as an output mechanism. When I change the code to use a MemoryStream instead of a StringBuilder, my UTF-8 encoding is preserved. I'm guessing this has something to do with the internal workings of the string type and how it deals with encoding.

You need to use an XmlWriterSettings object. Set its properties to omit the XML declaration, and pass it to the constructor of your XmlWriter.

StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();
XmlReader rawData = BusinessObject.GetXml();

XmlWriterSettings writerSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
writerSettings.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;

using (XmlWriter transformedData = XmlWriter.Create(output, writerSettings))
{
  XslCompiledTransform transform = new XslCompiledTransform();
  transform.Load("stylesheet.xslt");
  transform.Transform(data, transformedData);
  Response.Write(output.ToString());
}

The easiest way would be to add this node to your XSLT:

<xsl:output 
    method="html" 
    omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>