Set xml header with XmlSerializer

Question

My xml looks like that...

I have this fixed header I need to append to any xml file I am writing, an idea how do I do that?

**<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE profile SYSTEM "criteria_profile.dtd">**
<profile type="INTERC" id="6 " description="MushonTest" state="" lastchuser="MUSHON" lastchtmstmp="20130903132018 " createuser="MUSHON">
    <root>
        <node type="A">
            <item description="crite3">
                <field>AUTHCKMAN<criterion sign="I" opt="EQ" low="cl" high=""/>
                </field>
                <field>JOBCLASS<criterion sign="I" opt="EQ" low="clas" high=""/>
                </field>
                <field>JOBNAME<criterion sign="I" opt="EQ" low="nam" high=""/>
                </field>
                <field>SDLUNAME<criterion sign="I" opt="EQ" low="creat" high=""/>
                </field>
            </item>

Answer 1

You can only do that via XmlWriter - not directly as part of the XmlSerializer API; but you can still use XmlSerializer here, for example:

var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Foo));
using (var xw = XmlWriter.Create({any output device here}))
{
    xw.WriteDocType("profile", null, "criteria_profile.dtd", null);
    ser.Serialize(xw, new Foo());
}

which generates:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE profile SYSTEM "criteria_profile.dtd"><Foo xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />