How to convert JSON to XML or XML to JSON?

Question

I started to use Json.NET to convert a string in JSON format to object or viceversa. I am not sure in the Json.NET framework, is it possible to convert a string in JSON to X

Answer 1

Thanks for David Brown's answer. In my case of JSON.Net 3.5, the convert methods are under the JsonConvert static class:

XmlNode myXmlNode = JsonConvert.DeserializeXmlNode(myJsonString); // is node not note
// or .DeserilizeXmlNode(myJsonString, "root"); // if myJsonString does not have a root
string jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(myXmlNode);

Answer 2

I searched for a long time to find alternative code to the accepted solution in the hopes of not using an external assembly/project. I came up with the following thanks to the source code of the DynamicJson project:

public XmlDocument JsonToXML(string json)
{
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

    using (var reader = JsonReaderWriterFactory.CreateJsonReader(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json), XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas.Max))
    {
        XElement xml = XElement.Load(reader);
        doc.LoadXml(xml.ToString());
    }

    return doc;
}

Note: I wanted an XmlDocument rather than an XElement for xPath purposes. Also, this code obviously only goes from JSON to XML, there are various ways to do the opposite.

Answer 3

Try this function. I just wrote it and haven't had much of a chance to test it, but my preliminary tests are promising.

public static XmlDocument JsonToXml(string json)
{
    XmlNode newNode = null;
    XmlNode appendToNode = null;
    XmlDocument returnXmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
    returnXmlDoc.LoadXml("<Document />");
    XmlNode rootNode = returnXmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("Document");
    appendToNode = rootNode;

    string[] arrElementData;
    string[] arrElements = json.Split('\r');
    foreach (string element in arrElements)
    {
        string processElement = element.Replace("\r", "").Replace("\n", "").Replace("\t", "").Trim();
        if ((processElement.IndexOf("}") > -1 || processElement.IndexOf("]") > -1) && appendToNode != rootNode)
        {
            appendToNode = appendToNode.ParentNode;
        }
        else if (processElement.IndexOf("[") > -1)
        {
            processElement = processElement.Replace(":", "").Replace("[", "").Replace("\"", "").Trim();
            newNode = returnXmlDoc.CreateElement(processElement);
            appendToNode.AppendChild(newNode);
            appendToNode = newNode;
        }
        else if (processElement.IndexOf("{") > -1 && processElement.IndexOf(":") > -1)
        {
            processElement = processElement.Replace(":", "").Replace("{", "").Replace("\"", "").Trim();
            newNode = returnXmlDoc.CreateElement(processElement);
            appendToNode.AppendChild(newNode);
            appendToNode = newNode;
        }
        else
        {
            if (processElement.IndexOf(":") > -1)
            {
                arrElementData = processElement.Replace(": \"", ":").Replace("\",", "").Replace("\"", "").Split(':');
                newNode = returnXmlDoc.CreateElement(arrElementData[0]);
                for (int i = 1; i < arrElementData.Length; i++)
                {
                    newNode.InnerText += arrElementData[i];
                }

                appendToNode.AppendChild(newNode);
            }
        }
    }

    return returnXmlDoc;
}

Answer 4

Yes. Using the JsonConvert class which contains helper methods for this precise purpose:

// To convert an XML node contained in string xml into a JSON string   
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xml);
string jsonText = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(doc);

// To convert JSON text contained in string json into an XML node
XmlDocument doc = JsonConvert.DeserializeXmlNode(json);

Documentation here: Converting between JSON and XML with Json.NET

Answer 5

Here is the full c# code to convert xml to json

public static class JSon
{
public static string XmlToJSON(string xml)
{
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.LoadXml(xml);

    return XmlToJSON(doc);
}
public static string XmlToJSON(XmlDocument xmlDoc)
{
    StringBuilder sbJSON = new StringBuilder();
    sbJSON.Append("{ ");
    XmlToJSONnode(sbJSON, xmlDoc.DocumentElement, true);
    sbJSON.Append("}");
    return sbJSON.ToString();
}

//  XmlToJSONnode:  Output an XmlElement, possibly as part of a higher array
private static void XmlToJSONnode(StringBuilder sbJSON, XmlElement node, bool showNodeName)
{
    if (showNodeName)
        sbJSON.Append("\"" + SafeJSON(node.Name) + "\": ");
    sbJSON.Append("{");
    // Build a sorted list of key-value pairs
    //  where   key is case-sensitive nodeName
    //          value is an ArrayList of string or XmlElement
    //  so that we know whether the nodeName is an array or not.
    SortedList<string, object> childNodeNames = new SortedList<string, object>();

    //  Add in all node attributes
    if (node.Attributes != null)
        foreach (XmlAttribute attr in node.Attributes)
            StoreChildNode(childNodeNames, attr.Name, attr.InnerText);

    //  Add in all nodes
    foreach (XmlNode cnode in node.ChildNodes)
    {
        if (cnode is XmlText)
            StoreChildNode(childNodeNames, "value", cnode.InnerText);
        else if (cnode is XmlElement)
            StoreChildNode(childNodeNames, cnode.Name, cnode);
    }

    // Now output all stored info
    foreach (string childname in childNodeNames.Keys)
    {
        List<object> alChild = (List<object>)childNodeNames[childname];
        if (alChild.Count == 1)
            OutputNode(childname, alChild[0], sbJSON, true);
        else
        {
            sbJSON.Append(" \"" + SafeJSON(childname) + "\": [ ");
            foreach (object Child in alChild)
                OutputNode(childname, Child, sbJSON, false);
            sbJSON.Remove(sbJSON.Length - 2, 2);
            sbJSON.Append(" ], ");
        }
    }
    sbJSON.Remove(sbJSON.Length - 2, 2);
    sbJSON.Append(" }");
}

//  StoreChildNode: Store data associated with each nodeName
//                  so that we know whether the nodeName is an array or not.
private static void StoreChildNode(SortedList<string, object> childNodeNames, string nodeName, object nodeValue)
{
    // Pre-process contraction of XmlElement-s
    if (nodeValue is XmlElement)
    {
        // Convert  <aa></aa> into "aa":null
        //          <aa>xx</aa> into "aa":"xx"
        XmlNode cnode = (XmlNode)nodeValue;
        if (cnode.Attributes.Count == 0)
        {
            XmlNodeList children = cnode.ChildNodes;
            if (children.Count == 0)
                nodeValue = null;
            else if (children.Count == 1 && (children[0] is XmlText))
                nodeValue = ((XmlText)(children[0])).InnerText;
        }
    }
    // Add nodeValue to ArrayList associated with each nodeName
    // If nodeName doesn't exist then add it
    List<object> ValuesAL;

    if (childNodeNames.ContainsKey(nodeName))
    {
        ValuesAL = (List<object>)childNodeNames[nodeName];
    }
    else
    {
        ValuesAL = new List<object>();
        childNodeNames[nodeName] = ValuesAL;
    }
    ValuesAL.Add(nodeValue);
}

private static void OutputNode(string childname, object alChild, StringBuilder sbJSON, bool showNodeName)
{
    if (alChild == null)
    {
        if (showNodeName)
            sbJSON.Append("\"" + SafeJSON(childname) + "\": ");
        sbJSON.Append("null");
    }
    else if (alChild is string)
    {
        if (showNodeName)
            sbJSON.Append("\"" + SafeJSON(childname) + "\": ");
        string sChild = (string)alChild;
        sChild = sChild.Trim();
        sbJSON.Append("\"" + SafeJSON(sChild) + "\"");
    }
    else
        XmlToJSONnode(sbJSON, (XmlElement)alChild, showNodeName);
    sbJSON.Append(", ");
}

// Make a string safe for JSON
private static string SafeJSON(string sIn)
{
    StringBuilder sbOut = new StringBuilder(sIn.Length);
    foreach (char ch in sIn)
    {
        if (Char.IsControl(ch) || ch == '\'')
        {
            int ich = (int)ch;
            sbOut.Append(@"\u" + ich.ToString("x4"));
            continue;
        }
        else if (ch == '\"' || ch == '\\' || ch == '/')
        {
            sbOut.Append('\\');
        }
        sbOut.Append(ch);
    }
    return sbOut.ToString();
 }
}

To convert a given XML string to JSON, simply call XmlToJSON() function as below.

string xml = "<menu id=\"file\" value=\"File\"> " +
              "<popup>" +
                "<menuitem value=\"New\" onclick=\"CreateNewDoc()\" />" +
                "<menuitem value=\"Open\" onclick=\"OpenDoc()\" />" +
                "<menuitem value=\"Close\" onclick=\"CloseDoc()\" />" +
              "</popup>" +
            "</menu>";

string json = JSON.XmlToJSON(xml);
// json = { "menu": {"id": "file", "popup": { "menuitem": [ {"onclick": "CreateNewDoc()", "value": "New" }, {"onclick": "OpenDoc()", "value": "Open" }, {"onclick": "CloseDoc()", "value": "Close" } ] }, "value": "File" }}

Answer 6

You can do these conversions also with the .NET Framework:

JSON to XML: by using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json

var xml = XDocument.Load(JsonReaderWriterFactory.CreateJsonReader(
    Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(jsonString), new XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas()));

XML to JSON: by using System.Web.Script.Serialization

var json = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(GetXmlData(XElement.Parse(xmlString)));

private static Dictionary<string, object> GetXmlData(XElement xml)
{
    var attr = xml.Attributes().ToDictionary(d => d.Name.LocalName, d => (object)d.Value);
    if (xml.HasElements) attr.Add("_value", xml.Elements().Select(e => GetXmlData(e)));
    else if (!xml.IsEmpty) attr.Add("_value", xml.Value);

    return new Dictionary<string, object> { { xml.Name.LocalName, attr } };
}