XML to JavaScript Object

parses XML and returns a javascript object w/ a scheme that corresponds the xml. xml siblings w/ the same name are collapsed into arrays. nodes with names that can be found in the arrayTags parameter (array of tag name strings) always yeld arrays even in case of only one tag occurrence. arrayTags can be omitted. text nodes w/ only spaces are discarded. use console.log(parseXml(myxml)) to explore the output

parseXml(xml, arrayTags)
{
    var dom = null;
    if (window.DOMParser)
    {
        dom = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString(xml, "text/xml");
    }
    else if (window.ActiveXObject)
    {
        dom = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLDOM');
        dom.async = false;
        if (!dom.loadXML(xml))
        {
            throw dom.parseError.reason + " " + dom.parseError.srcText;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        throw "cannot parse xml string!";
    }

    function isArray(o)
    {
        return Object.prototype.toString.apply(o) === '[object Array]';
    }

    function parseNode(xmlNode, result)
    {
        if(xmlNode.nodeName == "#text" && xmlNode.nodeValue.trim() == "")
        {
            return;
        }

        var jsonNode = {};
        var existing = result[xmlNode.nodeName];
        if(existing)
        {
            if(!isArray(existing))
            {
                result[xmlNode.nodeName] = [existing, jsonNode];
            }
            else
            {
                result[xmlNode.nodeName].push(jsonNode);
            }
        }
        else
        {
            if(arrayTags && arrayTags.indexOf(xmlNode.nodeName) != -1)
            {
                result[xmlNode.nodeName] = [jsonNode];
            }
            else
            {
                result[xmlNode.nodeName] = jsonNode;
            }
        }

        if(xmlNode.attributes)
        {
            var length = xmlNode.attributes.length;
            for(var i = 0; i < length; i++)
            {
                var attribute = xmlNode.attributes[i];
                jsonNode[attribute.nodeName] = attribute.nodeValue;
            }
        }

        var length = xmlNode.childNodes.length;
        for(var i = 0; i < length; i++)
        {
            parseNode(xmlNode.childNodes[i], jsonNode);
        }
    }

    var result = {};
    if(dom.childNodes.length)
    {
        parseNode(dom.childNodes[0], result);
    }

    return result;
}

Here's a nice xml2json and json2xml converter:

• http://goessner.net/download/prj/jsonxml/
  • Related tutorial: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/05/31/converting-between-xml-and-json.html

Here's another one:

• http://www.kawa.net/works/js/xml/objtree-e.html

Depending on your needs, you might be able to use a standard parser (see http://www.w3schools.com/XML/tryit.asp?filename=tryxml_parsertest2) and xpath (http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/default.asp) - here's an example:

• http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/5272

and a few nice tutorials:

• http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2009/03/17/xpath-in-javascript-part-1/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/introduction_to_using_xpath_in_javascript

The xml2json javascript file from https://bitbucket.org/surenrao/xml2json is all you need to do this.

Here's the download link for quick download: https://bitbucket.org/surenrao/xml2json/get/0e0989dfe48e.zip

Once included in your project, here's some sample code to get you started:

var xmlStr = "<root><person><name>Bob Dylan</name></person></root>";
var jsObj = X2J.parseXml(xmlStr);
var result = jsObj[0].root[0].person[0].name[0].jValue; //Bob Dylan