View the XML data behind a Search Core Results Web Part

If you wish to view the raw XML data that is associated with a Search Core Results or People Search Core Results web part, you can do so via the following steps:

1. Open IE and navigate to the page that contains the given Core Results web part
2. Select Site Actions -> Edit Page
3. Click on your web part's menu and select Edit Web Part
4. Expand Display Properties and click on the XSL Editor... button
5. In the Text Editor window, copy the existing XSL to a temporary location since you'll probably need it again.  Here is a possible option for you:
1. Hit Ctrl+a to highlight all of the content
2. Hit Ctrl+c to save the content
3. Open Notepad
4. Hit Ctrl+v to past the content to Notepad
6. Return to the Text Editor window, hit Ctrl+a, and hit Delete
7. Copy and paste the following XSL code into the Text Editor window:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <xmp><xsl:copy-of select="*"/></xmp> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>

8. Click Save
9. Click OK
10. Return to the parent Search page and enter a valid search parameter

At this point, the page that contains the Search Core Results web part will be displayed with the XML contents available for your review.  Once your review of the data is complete, I recommend that you revisit the XLS Editor... and replace the XSL code with the code that you copied into Notepad earlier.  Unless, of course, your users like to view XML data in his/her search results which is not very likely...