microsoft / microsoft/XmlNotepad

AutoFormatOnSave inserts newlines for empty elements

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Dominant language
C#
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Description

I was editing a file with many empty elements, like:

<tag1></tag1>
<tag2></tag2>
<tag3></tag3>

AutoFormatOnSave changed these to:

<tag1> </tag1> <tag2> </tag2> <tag3> </tag3>

This messed up the program whose XML file I was editing, since it now saw whitespace as the value of those elements instead of NULL.

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the issue in XmlNotepad with AutoFormatOnSave enabled and empty elements such as . Start by tracing the AutoFormatOnSave formatter entry point; done means empty elements remain without inserted whitespace so their values are still interpreted as NULL.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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