Bdragon's Lair

XmlException: The data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.

This might be a really obscure (or dumb?) ASP.NET / C# problem, but again I thought I'd post something about it in case it helps someone else searching about this issue....

I was getting an exception when loading an XML file:

  Error with ... xml\nav.xml: System.Xml.XmlException:
  The data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.
    at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.ParseRoot()
    at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read()
    at System.Xml.XmlValidatingReader.ReadWithCollectTextToken()
    at System.Xml.XmlValidatingReader.Read()
    at System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace)
    at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader)
    at System.Xml.XmlDocument.LoadXml(String xml)

This is a bookmarklet I wrote up for my own use since I wasn't able to find something that performs a similar function (probably there IS something out there, I just wasn't able to find it in a short amount of time :-)... It's really for the purposes of web development (well that's why I made it at least) when you either need to show or print out all the options that are available in a web page form drop-down (select) list. I'm sharing it here in case it can help someone else but I cannot, of course, provide any support (help getting it to work) or guarantees about it at all - use at your own "risk", figure it out on your own time, etc. etc.

Here's a screen shot example of what it does (skip below for the bookmarklet itself):

LAKEWOOD - Lakewood Police officers are spending their time off Tuesday pumping gas and cleaning car windows.

The officers will be working to raise money for a family victimized by an attempted murder and robbery

Moti Lal was shot several times while working at the U-Pump-It gas station during a Dec. 9 robbery. Lal and his family own the gas station on West Colfax near Simms.

More than a month after the incident, 50-year-old Lal remains hospitalized in stable condition at St. Anthony's.

• 9news.com | News

"I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

"The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

You believe the world's 12 thousand years old? "That's right." Okay I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready? "Uh huh." Dinosaurs. You know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the f---ing Bible at some point. "And lo Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus...with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big f---ing lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend.

- Bill Hicks

If it's a joke, how come I'm not laughing....