XDocument.Load(String, LoadOptions) creates a new XDocument from a file, optionally preserving white space
Imports System Imports System.Xml Imports System.Xml.XPath Public Class MainClass Public Shared Sub Main() Dim doc1 As XDocument = XDocument.Load("data.xml", LoadOptions.None) Console.WriteLine("nodes if not preserving whitespace: {0}", doc1.DescendantNodes().Count()) Dim doc2 As XDocument = XDocument.Load("data.xml", LoadOptions.PreserveWhitespace) Console.WriteLine("nodes if preserving whitespace: {0}", doc2.DescendantNodes().Count()) End Sub End Class