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up vote 65 down vote favorite
30

How would you convert from XML to JSON and then back to XML?

The following tools work quite well, but aren't completely consistent:

Has anyone encountered this situation before?

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5  
Explain the inconsistencies, please – Josh Stodola Nov 20 '09 at 22:08
1  
Specifically, had to do with converting JSON arrays with just 1 element to XML. When you converted it back to JSON, instead of a 1-element array, it created the object literal. I worked around it by checking the type with $.isArray(), and wrapping it in an array if !$.isArray(). – Jason Denizac Nov 20 '09 at 23:33
    
xml2json - fyneworks.com/jquery/xml-to-json - breaks throws 500 as of 15/02/2013 14:25 AEST – ysrb Feb 15 '13 at 3:25
    
The json2xml link is broken. – whirlwin Jul 3 '13 at 12:48
    
@ysrb The plugin example will not work in IE8! – julmot Dec 17 '14 at 16:07

6 Answers 6

up vote 51 down vote accepted

I think this is the best one: Converting between XML and JSON

Be sure to read the accompanying article on the xml.com O'Reilly site, which goes into details of the problems with these conversions, which I think you will find enlightening. The fact that O'Reilly is hosting the article should indicate that Stefan's solution has merit.

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thanks for the reply! In my case, the JSON is the canonical representation, and XML is just used for XSLT.. the use of which is not my idea! :) – Jason Denizac Nov 20 '09 at 23:29
    
This is only in the browser. Doesn't apply for node.js or non-browser environments. Any other ideas? – Homer6 May 2 '13 at 17:47
1  
In regards to @JasonDenizac comment to his post, I am not sure to understand how this link helps fixing the issue of having an object instead of an array of one item... – guiomie Jul 25 '13 at 15:27
1  
I found that if you start from json-xml-json, this library works well, but if you want xml-json-xml there is a problem with reversibility since it adds metadata xml elements like <o> and <e> – vishr Dec 26 '13 at 18:37
1  
Please note that this is a copyleft licensed solution. It is only an option when you are writing open source software. – Jasper Jun 26 '14 at 11:45
up vote 26 down vote

http://code.google.com/p/x2js/ - my own library:

This library provides XML to JSON (JavaScript Objects) and vice versa javascript conversion functions. The library is very small and doesn't require any other additional libraries.

API functions

  • new X2JS() - to create your instance to access all library functionality. Also you could specify optional configuration options here
  • X2JS.xml2json - Convert XML specified as DOM Object to JSON
  • X2JS.json2xml - Convert JSON to XML DOM Object
  • X2JS.xml_str2json - Convert XML specified as string to JSON
  • X2JS.json2xml_str - Convert JSON to XML string

Online Demo on http://jsfiddle.net/abdmob/gtLBx/15/

var x2js = new X2JS();
function convertXml2JSon() {
    $("#jsonArea").val(JSON.stringify(x2js.xml_str2json($("#xmlArea").val())));
}

function convertJSon2XML() {
    $("#xmlArea").val(x2js.json2xml_str($.parseJSON($("#jsonArea").val())));
}

convertXml2JSon();
convertJSon2XML();
$("#convertToJsonBtn").click(convertXml2JSon);
$("#convertToXmlBtn").click(convertJSon2XML);
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Hi, how did you overcome the issue where if you have one object in an object it is in object litteral, where if there is n > 1 objects, you have an array. This makes it hard to use xml to json objects in templates... – guiomie Jul 25 '13 at 15:23
    
Yes, you should use some trick and it depends on your knowledge about XML structure (because no XSD here). Use <node>...<node>_asArray syntax to access your node always as array(sequence) – abdmob Jul 25 '13 at 16:41
1  
Sample:// XML string to JSON var xmlText = "<MyOperation><test>Success</test><test2><item>ddsfg</item><item>dsdgfdgfd</item‌​></test2></MyOperation>"; var jsonObj = X2JS.xml_str2json( xmlText ); alert (jsonObj.MyOperation.test); alert (jsonObj.MyOperation.test_asArray[0]); – abdmob Jul 25 '13 at 16:45
    
My main problem, is when I transform my json to xml back, the json is full of extra properties, and when the string xml version keeps all the useless stuff. It has all kind of commas, and whitespaces... – guiomie Jul 26 '13 at 17:59
    
could you submit your sample to code.google.com/p/x2js/issues I'll check it – abdmob Jul 27 '13 at 11:52
up vote 7 down vote

These answers helped me a lot to make this function:

function xml2json(xml) {
  try {
    var obj = {};
    if (xml.children.length > 0) {
      for (var i = 0; i < xml.children.length; i++) {
        var item = xml.children.item(i);
        var nodeName = item.nodeName;

        if (typeof (obj[nodeName]) == "undefined") {
          obj[nodeName] = xml2json(item);
        } else {
          if (typeof (obj[nodeName].push) == "undefined") {
            var old = obj[nodeName];

            obj[nodeName] = [];
            obj[nodeName].push(old);
          }
          obj[nodeName].push(xml2json(item));
        }
      }
    } else {
      obj = xml.textContent;
    }
    return obj;
  } catch (e) {
      console.log(e.message);
  }
}

As long as you pass in a jquery dom/xml object: for me it was:

Jquery(this).find('content').eq(0)[0]

where content was the field I was storing my xml in.

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up vote 3 down vote

for xml2json library : input as 'text' is giving below stated output

{
undefined"e":{"@name":"value","#text":"text"}
}

why "undefined" is coming in object?

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If you have a new question, please ask it by clicking the Ask Question button. Include a link to this question if it helps provide context. – codeWizard May 21 at 11:16
    
same problem here – kiltek Jun 18 at 12:14
up vote 2 down vote

A while back I wrote this tool https://bitbucket.org/surenrao/xml2json for my TV Watchlist app, hope this helps too.

Synopsys: A library to not only convert xml to json, but is also easy to debug (without circular errors) and recreate json back to xml. Features :- Parse xml to json object. Print json object back to xml. Can be used to save xml in IndexedDB as X2J objects. Print json object.

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@kleopatra this link points to the tool which converts xml to json. Its not a reference but the actual link to the resource. Not sure how else i should do it :) – surya Sep 2 '13 at 2:25
    
hach .. didn't read the question - good synopsis :-) – kleopatra Sep 2 '13 at 6:22
up vote 0 down vote

The best way to do it using server side as client side doesn't work well in all scenarios. I was trying to build online json to xml and xml to json converter using javascript and I felt almost impossible as it was not working in all scenarios. Ultimately I ended up doing it server side using Newtonsoft in ASP.MVC. Here is the online converter http://techfunda.com/Tools/XmlToJson

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