How does one test a file to see if it's a valid XML file before loading it with XDocument.Load()?

Question

I\'m loading an XML document in my C# application with the following:

XDocument xd1 = new XDocument();
xd1 = XDocument.Load(myfile);

but be

Answer 1

I would not XDocument.Load(), as per the accepted answer; why would you read the entire file into memory, it could be a huge file?

I'd probably read the first few bytes into a byteArray (it could even be any binary file), convert the byteArray to string e.g. System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(byteArray) ,check if the converted string contains the Xml elements you are expecting, only then continue.