I'm not familiar with the 850 file spec, but x12 834/835s are essentially a single line when the raw file is viewed ... I'm guessing that an x12 850 is similar? In it are effectively tagged loops at varying levels, similar to an xml, so I don't think enclosing that data in a higher-level xml tag will do much more to help, but I could be wrong. If you're approaching it via an xml schema, I'd think that you'd just want to use the loops/tags that are already in the raw data?