XML to JSON Conversion

Converting XML to JSON is essential when consuming data from SOAP APIs, RSS feeds, or enterprise services that speak XML, while your application uses JSON internally.

A typical XML document:

<user>
  <id>42</id>
  <name>Alice</name>
  <email>alice@example.com</email>
  <verified>true</verified>
</user>

Converts to this JSON:

{
  "user": {
    "id": "42",
    "name": "Alice",
    "email": "alice@example.com",
    "verified": "true"
  }
}

Key conversion challenges:

1. Everything becomes a string. XML element text content has no type information. <id>42</id> becomes "42" (string), not 42 (number). Post-processing is needed for type coercion.
2. Attributes vs. elements. XML can store data in both attributes and child elements. A common convention is to prefix attribute names with @ in the JSON output: <user id="42"> becomes { "@id": "42" }.
3. The root element dilemma. The XML root element (<user>) becomes a wrapper key in JSON. Some converters strip the root to produce a flatter output.
4. Single child vs. array ambiguity. If a parent has one <item> child, should the JSON be "item": {...} (object) or "item": [{...}] (array)? This is XML-to-JSON's biggest design decision.

Common conventions:

Convention	Attributes	Text content	Arrays
Parker	Dropped	Direct value	Based on count
BadgerFish	@attr prefix	$ key	Always arrays
Yahoo/JsonML	Positional	Mixed into array	Positional

Recommendation: For most use cases, the simple convention of element-to-key mapping with @-prefixed attributes and explicit array hints provides the best balance of readability and fidelity.