XSL transforms in VB.NET

[blondebier]

Greetings XML/XSL gurus!

I'm trying to perform an XSL transform in vb.net.
I have written an XSL that changes the structure of some XML, performs some calculations on it, and outputs a new XML file.

I need this process to be done in vb.net.

I have written the following code to do the job.

Try
Dim XSLTransform As New Xsl.XslTransform
Dim transformedXML As New Xml.XmlDocument
Dim XSLfilepath As String
XSLfilepath = Server.MapPath("myXSL.xsl")
Dim sw As New StringWriter

XSLTransform.Load(XSLfilepath)
XSLTransform.Transform(submissionXML, Nothing, sw, Nothing)
transformedXML.LoadXml(sw.ToString)
return transformedXML

Catch Ex As Exception
MsgBox("Error:" & Ex.ToString)
End Try

PROBLEM: The new XML that is generated has the following header;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>

I don't want it to be utf-16 I need it to be utf-8.

Apparently this is the standard encoding returned for a StringWriter object and it cannot be changed.

My second option was to output the new XML into a XmlTextWriter. This is works great, I can change the output encoding to UTF-8 by declaring it as

Dim xtw As XmlWriter = New XmlTextWriter(pathToWriteXML, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8)

But I have to write the darn XML to a file. I don't want it in a file, I want it in a domXML object.

This is so frustrating. (I'm pulling my hair out!)

If anyone has cracked this problem I would love to hear from you.

Cheers,
Francis