How to Convert XML to JSON

// Browser: Using DOMParser
function xmlToJson(xmlString) {
  const parser = new DOMParser();
  const doc = parser.parseFromString(xmlString, 'text/xml');
  
  function nodeToJson(node) {
    const result = {};
    
    // Handle attributes
    if (node.attributes) {
      for (let i = 0; i < node.attributes.length; i++) {
        const attr = node.attributes[i];
        result['@' + attr.name] = attr.value;
      }
    }
    
    // Handle child nodes
    const children = Array.from(node.childNodes);
    const elementChildren = children.filter(n => n.nodeType === 1);
    const textContent = children
      .filter(n => n.nodeType === 3)
      .map(n => n.textContent.trim())
      .join('');
    
    if (elementChildren.length === 0) {
      if (Object.keys(result).length === 0) {
        return textContent || null;
      }
      if (textContent) result['#text'] = textContent;
      return result;
    }
    
    // Group children by tag name
    for (const child of elementChildren) {
      const tagName = child.tagName;
      const childValue = nodeToJson(child);
      
      if (result[tagName]) {
        if (!Array.isArray(result[tagName])) {
          result[tagName] = [result[tagName]];
        }
        result[tagName].push(childValue);
      } else {
        result[tagName] = childValue;
      }
    }
    
    return result;
  }
  
  const root = doc.documentElement;
  return { [root.tagName]: nodeToJson(root) };
}

// Example usage
const xml = `
<book id="1" category="fiction">
  <title lang="en">The Great Gatsby</title>
  <author>F. Scott Fitzgerald</author>
  <year>1925</year>
</book>`;

console.log(JSON.stringify(xmlToJson(xml), null, 2));

// Node.js: Using xml2js (npm install xml2js)
const xml2js = require('xml2js');

async function parseXml(xmlString) {
  const parser = new xml2js.Parser({
    explicitArray: false,
    mergeAttrs: true
  });
  return await parser.parseStringPromise(xmlString);
}

# pip install xmltodict
import xmltodict
import json

xml_string = """
<bookstore>
  <book category="fiction">
    <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
    <author>J.K. Rowling</author>
    <price>29.99</price>
  </book>
  <book category="non-fiction">
    <title lang="en">Learning Python</title>
    <author>Mark Lutz</author>
    <price>39.95</price>
  </book>
</bookstore>
"""

# Convert XML to Python dict
data = xmltodict.parse(xml_string)

# Convert to JSON
json_string = json.dumps(data, indent=2)
print(json_string)

# Convert XML file to JSON file
def xml_to_json_file(xml_path, json_path):
    with open(xml_path, 'r') as xml_file:
        data = xmltodict.parse(xml_file.read())
    with open(json_path, 'w') as json_file:
        json.dump(data, json_file, indent=2)

# Using ElementTree (built-in, more control)
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

def element_to_dict(element):
    result = {}
    
    # Attributes (prefixed with @)
    for key, value in element.attrib.items():
        result[f'@{key}'] = value
    
    # Child elements
    for child in element:
        child_data = element_to_dict(child)
        if child.tag in result:
            if not isinstance(result[child.tag], list):
                result[child.tag] = [result[child.tag]]
            result[child.tag].append(child_data)
        else:
            result[child.tag] = child_data
    
    # Text content
    if element.text and element.text.strip():
        if result:
            result['#text'] = element.text.strip()
        else:
            return element.text.strip()
    
    return result

root = ET.fromstring(xml_string)
json_data = {root.tag: element_to_dict(root)}
print(json.dumps(json_data, indent=2))

<?php
// Simple conversion using simplexml
$xml_string = <<<XML
<users>
  <user id="1">
    <name>John Doe</name>
    <email>john@example.com</email>
  </user>
  <user id="2">
    <name>Jane Smith</name>
    <email>jane@example.com</email>
  </user>
</users>
XML;

// Method 1: Simple conversion
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
$json = json_encode($xml, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
echo $json;

// Method 2: Preserve attributes (prefixed with @)
function xmlToArray($xml) {
    $result = [];
    
    // Handle attributes
    foreach ($xml->attributes() as $key => $value) {
        $result["@$key"] = (string)$value;
    }
    
    // Handle child elements
    foreach ($xml->children() as $name => $child) {
        $childData = xmlToArray($child);
        
        if (isset($result[$name])) {
            if (!is_array($result[$name]) || !isset($result[$name][0])) {
                $result[$name] = [$result[$name]];
            }
            $result[$name][] = $childData;
        } else {
            $result[$name] = $childData;
        }
    }
    
    // Handle text content
    $text = trim((string)$xml);
    if (empty($result) && $text !== '') {
        return $text;
    }
    if ($text !== '') {
        $result['#text'] = $text;
    }
    
    return $result;
}

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
$array = [$xml->getName() => xmlToArray($xml)];
echo json_encode($array, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
?>

# Using xq (part of yq - brew install yq)
xq . input.xml > output.json

# Using Python one-liner with xmltodict
python -c "import xmltodict,json,sys; print(json.dumps(xmltodict.parse(sys.stdin.read()), indent=2))" < input.xml

# Using Node.js with xml2js
npx -p xml2js -c 'const xml2js=require("xml2js"); const fs=require("fs"); new xml2js.Parser().parseString(fs.readFileSync(0,"utf8"),(e,r)=>console.log(JSON.stringify(r,null,2)))' < input.xml

# Using Ruby
ruby -r'rexml/document' -rjson -e '
  def to_h(e)
    h = {}
    e.attributes.each { |k,v| h["@#{k}"] = v.to_s }
    e.elements.each { |c| 
      v = to_h(c)
      h[c.name] = h[c.name] ? [*h[c.name], v] : v
    }
    t = e.texts.map(&:to_s).join.strip
    h.empty? ? (t.empty? ? nil : t) : (t.empty? ? h : h.merge("#text"=>t))
  end
  d = REXML::Document.new(ARGF.read)
  puts JSON.pretty_generate({d.root.name => to_h(d.root)})
' < input.xml

// RSS Feed to JSON
async function rssFeedToJson(url) {
  const response = await fetch(url);
  const xmlText = await response.text();
  
  const parser = new DOMParser();
  const doc = parser.parseFromString(xmlText, 'text/xml');
  
  const items = Array.from(doc.querySelectorAll('item')).map(item => ({
    title: item.querySelector('title')?.textContent,
    link: item.querySelector('link')?.textContent,
    description: item.querySelector('description')?.textContent,
    pubDate: item.querySelector('pubDate')?.textContent,
    guid: item.querySelector('guid')?.textContent,
  }));
  
  return {
    title: doc.querySelector('channel > title')?.textContent,
    description: doc.querySelector('channel > description')?.textContent,
    link: doc.querySelector('channel > link')?.textContent,
    items
  };
}

// Usage
const feed = await rssFeedToJson('https://example.com/feed.xml');
console.log(JSON.stringify(feed, null, 2));