xml data always being created as CDATA and not PCDATA

Question

I wrote a web service with C# , and i want one of his methods to return an XML. i've managed to do so , but all the data is being tagged as CDATA and not being parsed. its not what i am looking for.

this is my code :

 [WebMethod(EnableSession = true, Description = "Returns the safe activities for the required days period in XML")]
    public string GetSafeActivitiesXML(string safename, int days, string FileName)
    {
        string returnErrorCode = "001";
        try
        {
            XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings
            {
                Indent = true
                //IndentChars = "  ",
                //NewLineChars = "\n",
                //NewLineHandling = NewLineHandling.None,
                //Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8
            };

            StringWriter sb = new StringWriter();
            XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sb,settings);

            writer.WriteStartDocument();
            writer.WriteStartElement("GetSafeActivitiesResult", "");

            int lineCouner = 0;

            if (safeActivities.Count > 0)
            {
                writer.WriteStartElement("ListOfStrings", "");
                foreach (ActivityLogRecord activity in safeActivities)
                {
                        writer.WriteStartElement("string");
                        writer.WriteElementString("outFileName", (activity.Info1.Substring(activity.Info1.LastIndexOf("\\")+1)));
                        writer.WriteElementString("activityTmStamp", activity.Time.ToString());
                        writer.WriteElementString("userName", activity.UserName);
                        writer.WriteElementString("ActionID", activityCode);
                        writer.WriteElementString("direction", direction);
                        writer.WriteElementString("path", activity.Info1);
                        writer.WriteEndElement();
                        lineCouner++;
                    }
                 }
                writer.WriteEndElement();
            }

            writer.WriteStartElement("retunCode");
            writer.WriteString((lineCouner > 0) ? "0" : "2");
            writer.WriteEndElement();
            writer.WriteStartElement("retunMessage");
            writer.WriteString((lineCouner > 0) ? "תקין" : "אין נתונים");
            writer.WriteEndElement();

            writer.WriteEndElement();
            writer.WriteEndDocument();
            writer.Flush();

            XmlDocument xmlOut = new XmlDocument();

            xmlOut.LoadXml(sb.ToString());
            writer.Close();
            //xmlOut.Save(xxx);
            string finalOutput = sb.ToString();
            finalOutput.Replace("![CDATA[", "").Replace("]]", "");
            return sb.ToString();

        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            this.LogWrite("GetSafeActivities", string.Format("Operation has failed: {0}, internal errorcode: {1}", ex.Message,returnErrorCode), Session.SessionID, true);
            return string.Format("<ReturnCode>{0}</ReturnCode><ReturnMSG>{1}</ReturnMSG>", "שגוי", ex.Message) ;             
        }

    }

This is an example for the current output:

 <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<soap:Body>
  <GetSafeActivitiesXMLResponse xmlns="http://www.securenet.co.il">
     <GetSafeActivitiesXMLResult><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
  <GetSafeActivitiesResult>
   <ListOfStrings>
<string>
  <outFileName>code-xmp-tmp.txt</outFileName>
  <activityTmStamp>21/06/2015 10:58:38</activityTmStamp>
  <userName>naaman</userName>
  <ActionID>קובץ אוחסן בכספת</ActionID>
  <direction>Unknown</direction>
  <path>Root\fgdf\code-xmp-tmp.txt</path>
</string>
</ListOfStrings>
<retunCode>0</retunCode>
<retunMessage>תקין</retunMessage>
 </GetSafeActivitiesResult>]]></GetSafeActivitiesXMLResult>
   </GetSafeActivitiesXMLResponse>
</soap:Body>

This is what i want to achieve:

 <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<soap:Body>
  <GetSafeActivitiesXMLResponse xmlns="http://www.securenet.co.il">
     <GetSafeActivitiesXMLResult><?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
  <GetSafeActivitiesResult>
   <ListOfStrings>
<string>
  <outFileName>code-xmp-tmp.txt</outFileName>
  <activityTmStamp>21/06/2015 10:58:38</activityTmStamp>
  <userName>naaman</userName>
  <ActionID>קובץ אוחסן בכספת</ActionID>
  <direction>Unknown</direction>
  <path>Root\fgdf\code-xmp-tmp.txt</path>
</string>
</ListOfStrings>
<retunCode>0</retunCode>
<retunMessage>תקין</retunMessage>
 </GetSafeActivitiesResult></GetSafeActivitiesXMLResult>
   </GetSafeActivitiesXMLResponse>
</soap:Body>

so my question really is , how to get rid of the CDATA tag, and why is it there on the first place.

i'm new to xml, so please be patient.

Answer 1

the method returned a String type, and that was the problem. i changed the return type to XmlDocument, and now its all honey and nuts.

Answer 2

The output you want to achieve is XML that is not well-formed: you're essentially trying to nest an XML document, complete with an XML declaration (i.e. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>), as literal character data within an XML document (or fragment) -- this is not a legal construct.

The proper way to include an XML document, or any text which would be recognized as markup, within another XML document (element) is to basically escape it by using a CDATA section so that it is not parsed as markup. And that is exactly what the web service/SOAP infrastructure is doing for you.

If it didn't do that and your XML text became parsed data (PCDATA) like you want, the consuming parser would throw an exception or return an error because your web service response XML would not be well-formed.