jquery - How to get xml data

Question

Im a total noob to html, css, javascript, and programming altogether. Please bear with me.

Im trying to populate my table using jquery. The data will be coming from an x

Answer 1

The sample XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
    <RecentBooks>
     <Book>
      <Title>My Cool Book Title</Title>
    <Description>The my cool book is possibly the best cool book in that any developer could use to     be a great web designer.</Description>
    <Date>12/1/2010</Date>
    </Book>
    <Book>
     <Title>Another PHP book</Title>
    <Description>Learn everything about PHP with 'Another PHP book,' your ultimate guide to the ins and outs of PHP.</Description>
    <Date>4/1/2010</Date>
    </Book>
    <Book>
    <Title>jQuery Techniques</Title>
    <Description>jQuery techniques runs you through real life examples of jQuery from beginner to expert</Description>
     <Date>6/2/2010</Date>
     </Book>
     <Book>
    <Title>MySQL Database Book</Title>
    <Description>Brush up your knowledge with the best MySQL database book on the market.          </Description>
    <Date>14/2/2010</Date>
    </Book>
    </RecentBooks>

And the HTML & jquery.

$(document).ready(function () {
$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: "books.xml",
    dataType: "xml",
    success: xmlParser
   });
});

function xmlParser(xml) {

$('#load').fadeOut();

$(xml).find("Book").each(function () {

    $(".main").append('<div class="book"><div class="title">' + $(this).find("Title").text() +   '</div><div class="description">' + $(this).find("Description").text() + '</div><div   class="date">Published ' + $(this).find("Date").text() + '</div></div>');
    $(".book").fadeIn(1000);

 });

}

<div class="main">
<div align="center" class="loader"><img src="loader.gif" id="load" width="16" height="11"   align="absmiddle"/></div>
</div>

 <div class="clear"></div>

you can go through the example and you will get idea about the same

Answer 2

I was in similar problem, where I was fetching XML data using HTTP GET and then parsing. Taking your example:

$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: "football_player.xml",
    ->dataType: "text",
    success: function(xml) {
        var parser = new DOMParser();
        var xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(xml, "text/xml");
        var json = ->getJson(xmlDoc);
        for(var i =0; i< json[0].football_player.length;i++) {
            var player = json[0].football_player[i];
            $("table tbody").append("<tr>");
            $("table tbody").append("<td>" + ->player.name + "</td>");
            $("table tbody").append("<td>" + ->player.club + "</td>");
            $("table tbody").append("<td>" + ->player.number + "</td>");
            $("table tbody").append("<td>" + ->player.country + "</td>");
            $("table tbody").append("</tr>");
        }
    }
});

Three things to notice (->):

1. dataType: "text" I made http request with data type as TEXT rather than XML, so that I get xml data as a string data type.

2. getJson(xmlDoc) method: I wrote a small function to convert XML to Javascript object (JSON). There are other small utilities available to do the same.

3. player.name: due to this conversion, you can use XML content as javascript objects and thus easier to parse and read.

I am pasting getJson() function below (its not tested, I made it for a POC, but worked for me):

function getJson(xmlDoc) {
    var result = [];

    for (var i = 0; i < xmlDoc.children.length; i++) {
        var child = xmlDoc.children[i];
        if (result[child.tagName] === undefined) {
            result[child.tagName] = [];
        }

        var nodeJson = getJsonFromNode(xmlDoc.children[i]);
        result[child.tagName].push(nodeJson);
    }

    return result;
}

function getJsonFromNode(node) {
    var nodeJson = {};
    // for attributes
    for (var i = 0; i < node.attributes.length; i++) {
        var att = node.attributes[i];
        nodeJson[att.localName] = att.value;
    }

    // for child nodes
    for (var i = 0; i < node.children.length; i++) {
        var child = node.children[i];
        if (nodeJson[child.tagName] === undefined) {
            nodeJson[child.tagName] = [];
        }
        var result = getJsonFromNode(node.children[i]);
        nodeJson[child.tagName].push(result);
    }

    return nodeJson;
}