JSON to XML

What this does

So something you are working with speaks XML, not JSON. Maybe it is an older system, a data feed, or a config format that expects angle brackets. This converts your JSON across. Paste it or upload a .json file, press Convert, and you get an XML version you can copy out.

How to use it

1. Paste your JSON, or upload a .json file.
2. Press Convert.
3. Copy the XML from the output box.

How it works

The tool walks through your JSON and rewrites it as XML. Each key becomes an element with its value inside, an object becomes a set of nested elements, and a list repeats its element once for each item. Text values are escaped so characters like & and < stay valid, and the whole result is wrapped in a single <root> element with an XML declaration on top, so what you get is well formed and ready to use. It does not lean on an outside library, it builds the markup directly, and it all happens in your browser, so the JSON you paste is not uploaded anywhere.

What to expect from the mapping

JSON and XML describe data in slightly different shapes, so a few things are worth knowing about how the mapping turns out.

Because XML needs a single top level element, the tool wraps everything in one <root> element. If you would rather it was called something else, just rename that wrapper after converting.

Lists are handled by repeating the element. A key with three values becomes that same tag three times in a row, one per value. If the very top level of your JSON is a list rather than an object, those items come out under generic <item> tags, since there is no key to name them.

XML is also stricter than JSON about names. A tag cannot contain spaces or start with a digit, so keys like first name or 123 are adjusted to keep the output valid: spaces become underscores, and a leading digit gets an underscore in front. The tags stay close to your keys, just tidied up enough to be legal.

Finally, the output comes out as a single compact line. If you want it laid out neatly, run it through an XML formatter.

A quick example

Here is a JSON object with a nested object and a list inside it:

{"book": {"title": "Dune", "tags": ["sci-fi", "classic"]}}

And the XML it becomes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><root><book><title>Dune</title><tags>sci-fi</tags><tags>classic</tags></book></root>

Notice the single <root> wrapper, the nested <book> element, and the <tags> element repeated once for each item in the list.

Questions people ask

References

1. World Wide Web Consortium. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/
2. MDN Web Docs. JSON.parse(). https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/parse