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c#.netxelementculture

C# - XElement and Culture

I am having issues with XElement and Culture.

My local culture is French. Floating value are written with a comma instead of a point.

Console.WriteLine(1.1d);
//1,1

However when I put a double in an XElement, it is stored in american format.

XElement myXmlElement = new XElement("ADoubleElement", 1.1d);
Console.WriteLine(myXmlElement.Value);
//1.1

Therefore when I try to parse back the value of my XElement, I get a FormatException.

XElement myXmlElement = new XElement("ADoubleElement", 1.1d);
double myDouble = double.Parse(myXmlElement.Value);
//Throws a FormatException

I find this behaviour really strange. When I write a XDoucment, it is not written in the culture of the application or the thread but always in american culture. Am I missing something ? I have some workaround to behave the way I expect but I do not find them very "clean".

//This will work
XElement myXmlElement = new XElement("ADoubleElement", 1.1d.ToString());
double myDouble = double.Parse(myXmlElement.Value);
//This will also work but if I write XElement, it will not have the correct Culture
XElement myXmlElement = new XElement("ADoubleElement", 1.1d);
double myDouble = (double)myXmlElement;
Solution

  • XML specification describes how data should be formatted, and that's why XElement does not use your culture - it follows XML specification (which is actually probably the same as InvariantCulture)

    That's also why casting XElement to double works and double.Parse doesn't: it follows XML specification formats instead of local ones.