JSON1

JSON1 / XML to JSON

XML to JSON

Convert XML to formatted JSON. Attributes become @name keys, repeated elements collapse into arrays, and mixed text lands under #text.

Processed locally
InputXML
Ready
OutputJSON

Converted output appears here as you type.

Good to know

  • XML has no type system, so values are guessed: "10001" becomes the number 10001 and an empty element becomes null. Round-tripping JSON through XML will not always return the original types.
  • Namespace declarations are markup rather than content, so xmlns and xmlns:* are not carried through as keys.

About this tool

Usually this is about getting a legacy or third-party payload into a shape modern code can work with. The mapping has to invent conventions, because XML distinguishes several things JSON does not — and every XML-to-JSON tool invents them slightly differently, which is worth knowing if you are comparing output.

The conventions here are the common ones:

  • @idAn attribute becomes a key with an @ prefix, so it cannot collide with a child element of the same name.
  • #textText sitting alongside child elements lands here, rather than being dropped as it would be by a naive walk.
  • [...]Repeated sibling elements collapse into an array. One occurrence stays a scalar, because nothing in the document says it was a list.
  • nullAn empty element becomes null, however it is written — <a/> and <a></a> are the same element, so they cannot give different JSON. So does one marked xsi:nil.

The one thing no convention can fix is types. XML has none — every value is text — so they have to be guessed, and the guessing is where data gets quietly changed.

Why did my postcode 02134 become the number 2134?
Because it looks numeric, and a number is the useful guess for the overwhelming majority of values. Identifiers, postcodes, phone numbers, and version strings are the exceptions, and they are exactly the fields where losing a leading zero matters. Check them before relying on the output.
Can I round-trip JSON through XML and back?
Not reliably, and the type guessing is why. A string "10001" goes out as <zipCode>10001</zipCode>, which has no way to say it was a string, so it comes back as a number. Structure survives the trip; types do not.
Where did my attributes go?
Nowhere — id="7" becomes the key @id. The prefix is what keeps it separate from a child element also called id, which is legal XML and would otherwise overwrite one with the other.
What about namespaces?
Prefixes are kept as part of the key, so <ns:name> becomes ns:name. Nothing is resolved against the declaration, because JSON has no way to express a namespace — the prefix is preserved as a name rather than interpreted.

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