Do you avoid validating XML documents unnecessarily?

Validating an XML document against a schema is expensive, and should not be done where it is not absolutely necessary. Combined with weight the XML document object, validation can cause a significant performance hit:

• Read with XmlValidatingReader: 172203 nodes - 812 ms
• Read with XmlTextReader: 172203 nodes - 320 ms
• Parse using XmlDocument no validation - length 1619608 - 1052 ms
• Parse using XmlDocument with XmlValidatingReader: length 1619608 - 1862 ms

You can disable validation when using the XmlDocument object by passing an XmlTextReader instead of the XmlValidatingTextReader:

XmlDocument report = new XmlDocument();
 XmlTextReader tr = new XmlTextReader(Configuration.LastReportPath);
 report.Load(tr);

To perform validation:

XmlDocument report = new XmlDocument();
 XmlTextReader tr = new XmlTextReader(Configuration.LastReportPath);
 XmlValidatingReader reader = new XmlValidatingReader(tr);
 report.Load(reader);

The XSD should be distributed in the same directory as the XML file and a relative path should be used:

<Report> <Report xmlns="LinkAuditorReport.xsd">
 ... </Report>