Name cannot begin with the ‘ ‘ character

Yes, you should delete the space between <? and xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<form>
   <e order="0" type="custom" name="test">
      <fi type="text" />
      <o />
   </e>
   <e order="1" type="zip" />
   <e order="2" type="state" />
</form>

Here’s the relevant XML spec.