--- title: "About Reflector, Encoding, And an Article Error" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/13/about-reflector-encoding-and-an-article-error.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/13/about-reflector-encoding-and-an-article-error.html" published: "2003-06-13T21:27:00" updated: "2003-06-13T21:27:00" tags: [".Net Original"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Yes. Lutz Roeder's Reflector is one cool tool. I just found out using it that my latest article has some bad code in it because of reflector. The article mentions that in order to write to a memory buffer instead f a…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # About Reflector, Encoding, And an Article Error By Roy Osherove June 13, 2003 In [.Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original) **Historical article** · Originally published June 13, 2003; technical details may be outdated. Yes. Lutz Roeder's [Reflector](http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/) is one cool tool. I just found out using it that my [latest article](http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2003/06/09/parsinglogs.html) has some bad code in it because of reflector. The article mentions that in order to write to a memory buffer instead f a file you can initialize a new _XMLTextWriter_ object using a _StringWriter_ object(which writes to a _StringBuilder_ object in turn). In the article ,I discovered a problem that when writing to a string buffer using the _StringWriter object initializer_, the XML document that is created always turns out with an Encoding header of **UTF-16** at the top. I couldn't figure out why. I assumed it was something on my own system's configuration , so I pointed to a workaround for the problem - make the _XMLTextWriter_ write directly to a file using a different constructor. That constructor allows you to specify the desired _Encoding_ for that file, thus allowing you to specify **UTF-8**. I then wrote in the article that "You _**might**_ get a UTF-16 encoding header" but I was wrong. A quick peek inside the _StringWriter_'s constructor using [Reflector](http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/) revealed the awful truth - The _StringWriter_ initializes itself with a new _UnicodeEncoding_ object by default, with no constructor available to change this decision. More so, the Encoding property of the _StringWriter_ is read-only, thus you can't change it after creation. So, this means (or am I way off base here) that whenever you'd use a _StringWriter_ for an _XMLTextWriter_ ctor, you would get a **UTF-16** XML header. **Always**. No way to change that. That means you can't write an XML Document to a memory buffer  as a UTF-8 encoded XML without going through some hoops. Sure, I could use other classes in the framework but I shouldn't have to. Why should the Encoding property of the StringWriter be Read-Only? ## More in .Net Original [All posts in .Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original) - Jun 15, 2003 ### [Data Binding Woes - A Simple Solution](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/15/data-binding-woes-a-simple-solution.html) - Jun 14, 2003 ### [Winforms Data Binding Woes](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/14/winforms-data-binding-woes.html) - Jun 12, 2003 ### [AppDomains Reloaded](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/12/appdomains-reloaded.html) - Jun 12, 2003 ### [.Net Debugging Resources Grows](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/12/net-debugging-resources-grows.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/