Localization manager after creating .resx files doesn't put <?xml ….?> tag in it. Why?

Question

Localization manager after creating .resx files doesn't put <?xml ….?> tag in it. Why?

Answer

The XML Declaration (<?xml ...?>) in the beginning is optional, according to the XML 2.8 section documentation.

Previously, if you didn't specify the encoding in this way, XML parsers try to guess what encoding is being used. The XML 1.0 Recommendation describes one possible way character encoding can be autodetected. In practice, this is not much of a problem if the input is encoded as UTF-8, UTF-16 or US-ASCII. Nowadays, most software is in xml-favored UTF-8. Also, shortening the file makes it more human-readable.