diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
index 891da916f1..0ec6c5c51f 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.io.Reader;
 import java.io.Writer;
+import java.io.StringWriter;
 import java.util.logging.Logger;
 
 /**
@@ -163,6 +164,15 @@ public final class XmlFile {
         return new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file),sniffEncoding());
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Returns the XML file read as a string.
+     */
+    public String asString() throws IOException {
+        StringWriter w = new StringWriter();
+        writeRawTo(w);
+        return w.toString();
+    }
+
     /**
      * Writes the raw XML to the given {@link Writer}.
      * Writer will not be closed by the implementation.