TextFlow XML export issue with missing whitespaces

Question

If I export a TextFlow into XML (with either TextFlowUtil or TextConverter) it will lose white spaces where they occur between elements, so that a subsequence import will yield different content from the original. A simple example being:
"Where is my white space". Will export and re-import to give: "Whereismywhitespace".
This happens in the XML build process because when a text node is programatically appended (with appendChild()) white spaces are stripped from the start and end. For example, if you do xml.appendChild("     hello    ") you actually get an XML element containing just "hello".
Now I understand there is a directive (XML.ignoreWhiteSpace) to ignore or keep white space when parsing nodes already set in the XML, but I cannot see how to do this when you are building the XML from some data structure (like a TextFlow), or indeed when creating an XML object from a String that contains XML notation.
I am unaware how you can include surrounding whitespace in an XML node (short of CDATA). And the fact that the TextFlow XML import/export loses information seems to make it, well, pretty pointless.
So, how do I retain these white spaces in a TextFlow in an exported XML?

Answer 1

The solution for this problem consists of two parts.
First part is exporting the xml from the textflow, you want no formatted XML (with breaks, tabs, ...), but one long string with the spaces left like there were entered between the tags, this can be done with:
_textXML = TextConverter.export(EditorID.textFlow,TextConverter.TEXT_LAYOUT_FORMAT,ConversionType.STRING_TYPE) as String;
Use the TextConverter in stead of the TextFlowUtil.
Second part is back importing to textFlow:
There the solution mentioned above was correct.
XML.ignoreWhitespace = false;
var flowXML:XML = new XML(_textXML);
contentTLF = TextFlowUtil.importFromXML(flowXML,WhiteSpaceCollapse.PRESERVE);