code: def xmlstring(self, pretty_print=False):
          
          s = ElementTree.tostring(self.xml(), xml_declaration=False, pretty_print=pretty_print, encoding='utf-8')
          if sys.version < '3':
              if isinstance(s, str):
                  s = unicode(s,'utf-8') #pylint: disable=undefined-variable
          else:
              if isinstance(s,bytes):
                  s = str(s,'utf-8')
  
          s = s.replace('ns0:','') #ugly patch to get rid of namespace prefix
          s = s.replace(':ns0','')
          return s
docs: Serialises this FoLiA element and all its contents to XML.
  
          Returns:
              str: a string with XML representation for this element and all its children