Root element is missing - Stream xml to dataset

[ralphie81]

Hello all...

I am creating a web service that pulls xml files from a website and puts the data in a dataset. At least that's what it's supposed to do. Instead, I'm only getting this:

System.Xml.XmlException: Root element is missing.
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowWithoutLineInfo(String res)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseDocumentContent()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read()
at System.Xml.XmlReader.MoveToContent()
at System.Data.DataSet.ReadXml(XmlReader reader, Boolean denyResolving)
at System.Data.DataSet.ReadXml(TextReader reader)

My code from the function in the .asmx file looks like this:

<WebMethod()> Public Function GetDataXML() As DataSet
Dim request As Net.WebRequest = WebRequest.Create("[URL]http://brianpaulsmith.net/WF031606.xml[/URL]")
' If required by the server, set the credentials.
request.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials
' Get the response.
Dim response As HttpWebResponse = CType(request.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
 
Dim dataStream As Stream = response.GetResponseStream()
' Open the stream using a StreamReader for easy access.
Dim reader As New StreamReader(dataStream)
' Read the content.
'Dim responseFromServer As String = reader.ReadToEnd()
 
Dim mydata As New DataSet
mydata.ReadXml(reader)
' return the dataset
Return mydata
' Cleanup the streams and the response.
reader.Close()
dataStream.Close()
response.Close()
 
End Function

And the beginning of the xml file I am reading looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<data>
<item>
<timestamp>03/16/2006,00:10:00</timestamp> 
.......................
</item>
</data>

Can anyone tell from just that where it might be going awry? If you need more info, let me know.

Oh, and for those that noticed this line:
'Dim responseFromServer As String = reader.ReadToEnd()
that is for a test where I had it return a string rather than a dataset, and it worked fine, although it was embedded inside the xml that the web service generated, so there were dual <xml...> tags, like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<string xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <data> <item> <timestamp>03/16/2006,00:10:00</timestamp>

but I don't think that should affect it since the first one is created by the web service itself. I could be wrong though, so I thought I'd point it out.

Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated, thanks!

Brian

 

[JohnH]

I don't get any error running your webmethod. Also you must do your cleanups before the Return statement, the Return statement returns the object and ends the method, no line of code after the Return is executed in that code block.