parsing xml & whitespace

[bampot]

I am currently trying to use the expat xml functions in php to parse xml generated via XML_Serializer from PEAR. However the generated xml has whitespace for the first 14 lines and causes this error

XML error: xml declaration not at start of external entity at line 16

here is the serializer code

	function set_xml_serialise()
	{
		// include class file
		include("Serializer.php");

	// create object
	$serializer = new XML_Serializer();

	mysql_data_seek($this->results, 0); // set to beginning

	// iterate through rows and print column data
	while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($this->results))
	{
		$xml[] = array ( "product_id" => $row[0],
		"short_desc" => $row[1],
		"long_desc" => $row[2],
	 	"unit_price" => $row[3],
	 	"product_group_id" => $row[4],
	 	"product_sub_group_id" => $row[5],
		"updated_last" => $row[6],
		"keywords" => $row[7],);
	}


	$serializer->setOption("addDecl", true); 	// add XML declaration

	$serializer->setOption("indent", "    ");	// indent elements

	$serializer->setOption("defaultTagName", "product");	// set default tag

	$serializer->setOption("rootName", "product_info");	// set name for root element

	$result = $serializer->serialize($xml);	// perform serialization

	if($result === true) // check result code and set XML if success
	{
		$this->xml_serialised =  $serializer->getSerializedData();
	}

If i save the xml without the whitespace and parse it, it works fine. Could anyone tell me how to solve this.

thanks in advance