#82 – How XAML Handles Whitespace

In general, embedded spaces and line feeds in a XAML file are ignored.  You can normally include spaces or line feeds between consecutive items.  Here are some guidelines:

• You must have at least one space preceding each XAML attribute
• You must not have any whitespace following the open angle bracket ‘<‘ in an element tag
• You must not have any whitespace between the ‘/’ and ‘>’ characters in a self-closing element
• Whereever a namespace prefix is used, with the ‘:’ character, you must not have whitespace on either side of the ‘:’
• When a property value is expressed as text within quotation marks and it represents textual content, embedded whitespaces and line feeds are preserved.  (E.g. Embedded line feed in a button label)
• When text is used as a value for a content property, i.e. not in quotation marks
  • All leading and trailing whitespace is removed  (i.e. the string starts with the first non-whitespace character)
  • Internal whitespace is converted to a single space