What is XML to JSON?
XML remains heavily used in enterprise systems and SOAP APIs, but modern web applications prefer JSON. Converting between them often exposes proprietary business logic if done via cloud tools. Our XML to JSON converter parses the DOM tree entirely on your local machine, ensuring strict confidentiality for your enterprise payloads.
Before you use this tool
Use a small copy first, then inspect delimiters, encoding, numbers, dates, and missing values. A file can be valid and still be wrong for the system that will read it next. The safest tool is the one whose limits you understand.
Deep Dive: XML to JSON
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Core Capabilities
- Recursive XML-to-JSON transformation engine
- Configurable attribute mapping (prefixing or sub-objects)
- Intelligent array grouping for repeated tag names
- Namespace handling (Preserve, Strip, or Rename)
- CDATA and special character preservation
- Real-time syntax validation and error reporting
- Interactive JSON tree explorer with folding support
- locally processed and private: no server-side logic or cloud logging
Why It Matters
- Modernization: smoothly move data between legacy and modern tech stacks.
- Developer Productivity: Stop writing regular expressions to parse XML tags.
- Security: Process sensitive corporate XML manifests with zero exposure.
- Data Integrity: High-fidelity mapping ensures no metadata or attributes are lost.
- Portability: Works on any device without software installation.
Quick Start Guide
Source Your XML: Paste your XML directly into the editor or upload an.xml file. We handle everything from simple snippets to complex multi-megabyte docs.
Configure Mapping Rules: Choose how to handle attributes. You can keep them as object keys or move them into a special "@attr" sub-object for better separation.
Validate Syntax: Our tool performs a pre-flight check to ensure your XML is well-formed. If there's a missing closing tag or invalid character, we'll highlight it.
Toggle Namespace Support: If your XML uses URI namespaces (xmlns), toggle the namespace filter to either preserve or strip them for a cleaner JSON output.
Check the Tree Preview: Browse the generated JSON tree in real-time. You can expand and collapse branches to verify the hierarchy before exporting.
Download or Copy: Grab the final JSON result as a file or copy it directly to your clipboard. Your data stays fully local during the entire process.
Usage Examples
Basic XML to JSON
Scenario 01Convert simple XML structure
<person><name>John</name><age>30</age></person>
{"person": {"name": "John", "age": "30"}}XML with Attributes
Scenario 02Attributes become @ properties
<user id="123"><name>Jane</name></user>
{"user": {"@id": "123", "name": "Jane"}}Repeated Elements (Array)
Scenario 03Repeated tags become JSON arrays
<users><user>Alice</user><user>Bob</user></users>
{"users": {"user": ["Alice", "Bob"]}}Common Scenarios
Modernizing Legacy APIs
Convert old XML SOAP responses to JSON for modern apps.
RSS Feed Parsing
Read RSS/Atom feeds as JSON.
Configuration File Migration
Move from XML configs to JSON.
API Response Transformation
Work with XML APIs using JSON tooling.
Questions?
Technical Architecture
How XML→JSON Conversion Works
**The process**: 1. **Parse XML**: Build XML DOM tree from string 2. **Traverse Tree**: Walk through all elements recursively 3. **Map Elements**: Each tag becomes JSON key 4. **Handle Attributes**: Prefix with @ or similar convention 5. **Detect Arrays**: Repeated elements → JSON arrays 6. **Extract Values**: Text content becomes values **Example**: ```xml <person id='1'> <name>John</name> <email>[email protected]</email> </person> ``` Becomes: ```json { "person": { "@id": "1", "name": "John", "email": "[email protected]" } } ``` Element → object, attribute → @property, child elements → nested properties.
Attribute Handling Conventions
**The challenge**: XML has attributes AND element content: ```xml <user id='123'>John</user> ``` JSON can't represent this directly. **Common conventions**: **Option 1: @ prefix** (most common): ```json {"user": {"@id": "123", "#text": "John"}} ``` **Option 2: $ prefix**: ```json {"user": {"$id": "123", "_": "John"}} ``` **Option 3: Nested**: ```json {"user": {"attributes": {"id": "123"}, "content": "John"}} ``` Our tool uses @ convention (most widely adopted). Know which convention your API expects!
Array Detection in XML
**The problem**: XML doesn't have explicit arrays **XML example**: ```xml <users> <user>Alice</user> <user>Bob</user> </users> ``` **JSON result**: ```json { "users": { "user": ["Alice", "Bob"] } } ``` Repeated element names = array in JSON. **But what about single items?** ```xml <users> <user>Alice</user> </users> ``` Could be: - `{"users": {"user": "Alice"}}` (string) - `{"users": {"user": ["Alice"]}}` (array with one item) Depends on converter! Check output structure. Some always use arrays, some detect by count.
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Founder & Lead Developer at FileMint
Building privacy-first browser tools powered by WebAssembly. Focused on making file processing fast, secure, and accessible — without ever uploading your data to a server.
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