Right. Thanks. I decided to go string-manipulations after all. I also need to write against these customfields. I just encapsulated the value and it seems to work.

>It's not valid XML actually - there should be a root node.
>
>I think the .NET XML parsers can deal with this if you import the XML as a fragment (or a NodeList) and not as document.
>
>Since you're dealing with a string you can also add the root node yourself by prepending/appending < doc >< /doc > before loading the XML.
>
>+++ Rick ---
>
>>I get this raw string (see attached) when I draw up the customFields in the customers table of quickbooks. Is there a "best practices" way to decode/encode this into/from a customFieldsObject{string countryIsocode; string companyId}, or is it ok if use "brute force" string manipulations in this instance.
>>
>>And is it just me, or this _not_ a well formed xml, there should be (at least) encapsulating customFields tags no, for this to be submitted to xml encoding/decoding routines.