XML to JSON Converter

XML to JSON conversion rules

XML and JSON do not have the same data model: XML has attributes, ordered mixed content, namespaces and comments, while JSON only knows objects, arrays and a handful of scalar types. The converter therefore applies a set of deterministic rules, similar to the ones used by most XML/JSON libraries (Jackson, xml2js, Newtonsoft…):

• The document becomes an object with a single property named after the root element: { "root": … }.
• An element that contains only text becomes a string (its text, trimmed). An empty element (<empty/> or <empty></empty>) becomes null.
• An element with child elements becomes an object; each child becomes a property named after the child's element name. Element names keep their namespace prefix (foo:cd).
• Attributes become properties prefixed with the chosen prefix (@ by default): <cd id="1"> gives "@id": "1". When an element has attributes and text, the text goes into the #text property (name configurable).
• A sequence of two or more sibling elements with the same name becomes a JSON array. A single child stays a plain value, unless "Always wrap child elements in arrays" is checked, which is useful when your code expects a stable shape whatever the number of items.
• Namespace declarations (xmlns, xmlns:foo) are kept as attributes by default; uncheck the option to drop them.
• Comments are dropped unless "Include comments" is checked, in which case they appear as #comment properties (an array when there are several).
• Text is kept as a string unless "Convert numbers and booleans automatically" is checked, or a _type attribute is used (see below). Property order follows the document order.

Example

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<catalog xmlns:foo="http://www.foo.org/">
   <foo:cd id="1">
      <title>Empire Burlesque</title>
      <artist>Bob Dylan</artist>
      <price currency="USD">10.90</price>
      <notes/>
   </foo:cd>
   <foo:cd id="2">
      <title>Hide your heart</title>
      <artist>Bonnie Tyler</artist>
      <price currency="GBP">9.90</price>
   </foo:cd>
</catalog>

Output JSON:

{
   "catalog": {
      "@xmlns:foo": "http://www.foo.org/",
      "foo:cd": [
         {
            "@id": "1",
            "title": "Empire Burlesque",
            "artist": "Bob Dylan",
            "price": { "@currency": "USD", "#text": "10.90" },
            "notes": null
         },
         {
            "@id": "2",
            "title": "Hide your heart",
            "artist": "Bonnie Tyler",
            "price": { "@currency": "GBP", "#text": "9.90" }
         }
      ]
   }
}

The _type attribute: choosing the JSON type of a value

XML has no notion of data types, so every value is a string by default. To get real JSON numbers and booleans you can either enable "Convert numbers and booleans automatically" (every value that looks like a number or a boolean is converted) or annotate individual elements with a _type attribute. The attribute itself is removed from the output.

Accepted values: boolean, integer, float, number and string. A value that cannot be converted to the requested type is kept as a string.