The xml file generated has to be uploaded to an external server. The specs
  say that the tag only has to be in the format <?xml version="1.0"?>, maybe
  there is some validation being done. I am not aware of that validation but
  i know that the tag should be like <?xml version="1.0"?>.
  Is there a way to achieve this ?


<?xml is not an element so no (dtd or schema) validation can be applied
to it. If your process rejects  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
then it does not conform to the XML specification as every XML processor
is mandated to accept this.

David

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