xmljson converts XML into Python dictionary structures (trees, like in JSON) and vice-versa.
XML can be converted to a data structure (such as JSON) and back. For example:
<employees>
<person>
<name value="Alice"/>
</person>
<person>
<name value="Bob"/>
</person>
</employees>
can be converted into this data structure (which also a valid JSON object):
{
"employees": [{
"person": {
"name": {
"@value": "Alice"
}
}
}, {
"person": {
"name": {
"@value": "Bob"
}
}
}]
}
This uses the BadgerFish convention that prefixes attributes with @.
The conventions supported by this library are:
- Abdera: Use
"attributes"for attributes,"children"for nodes - BadgerFish: Use
"$"for text content,@to prefix attributes - Cobra: Use
"attributes"for sorted attributes (even when empty),"children"for nodes, values are strings - GData: Use
"$t"for text content, attributes added as-is - Parker: Use tail nodes for text content, ignore attributes
- Yahoo Use
"content"for text content, attributes added as-is
To convert from a data structure to XML using the BadgerFish convention:
>>> from xmljson import badgerfish as bf
>>> bf.etree({'p': {'@id': 'main', '$': 'Hello', 'b': 'bold'}})
This returns an array of etree.Element structures. In this case, the result is identical to:
>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import fromstring
>>> [fromstring('<p id="main">Hello<b>bold</b></p>')]
The result can be inserted into any existing root etree.Element:
>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import Element, tostring
>>> result = bf.etree({'p': {'@id': 'main'}}, root=Element('root'))
>>> tostring(result)
'<root><p id="main"/></root>'
This includes lxml.html as well:
>>> from lxml.html import Element, tostring
>>> result = bf.etree({'p': {'@id': 'main'}}, root=Element('html'))
>>> tostring(result, doctype='<!DOCTYPE html>')
'<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html><p id="main"></p></html>'
For ease of use, strings are treated as node text. For example, both the following are the same:
>>> bf.etree({'p': {'$': 'paragraph text'}})
>>> bf.etree({'p': 'paragraph text'})
By default, non-string values are converted to strings using Python's str,
except for booleans -- which are converted into true and false (lower
case). Override this behaviour using xml_fromstring:
>>> tostring(bf.etree({'x': 1.23, 'y': True}, root=Element('root')))
'<root><y>true</y><x>1.23</x></root>'
>>> from xmljson import BadgerFish # import the class
>>> bf_str = BadgerFish(xml_tostring=str) # convert using str()
>>> tostring(bf_str.etree({'x': 1.23, 'y': True}, root=Element('root')))
'<root><y>True</y><x>1.23</x></root>'
If the data contains invalid XML keys, these can be dropped via
invalid_tags='drop' in the constructor:
>>> bf_drop = BadgerFish(invalid_tags='drop')
>>> data = bf_drop.etree({'$': '1', 'x': '1'}, root=Element('root')) # Drops invalid <$> tag
>>> tostring(data)
'<root>1<x>1</x></root>'
To convert from XML to a data structure using the BadgerFish convention:
>>> bf.data(fromstring('<p id="main">Hello<b>bold</b></p>'))
{"p": {"$": "Hello", "@id": "main", "b": {"$": "bold"}}}
To convert this to JSON, use:
>>> from json import dumps
>>> dumps(bf.data(fromstring('<p id="main">Hello<b>bold</b></p>')))
'{"p": {"b": {"$": "bold"}, "@id": "main", "$": "Hello"}}'
To preserve the order of attributes and children, specify the dict_type as
OrderedDict (or any other dictionary-like type) in the constructor:
>>> from collections import OrderedDict >>> from xmljson import BadgerFish # import the class >>> bf = BadgerFish(dict_type=OrderedDict) # pick dict class
By default, values are parsed into boolean, int or float where possible (except
in the Yahoo method). Override this behaviour using xml_fromstring:
>>> dumps(bf.data(fromstring('<x>1</x>')))
'{"x": {"$": 1}}'
>>> bf_str = BadgerFish(xml_fromstring=False) # Keep XML values as strings
>>> dumps(bf_str.data(fromstring('<x>1</x>')))
'{"x": {"$": "1"}}'
>>> bf_str = BadgerFish(xml_fromstring=repr) # Custom string parser
'{"x": {"$": "\'1\'"}}'
xml_fromstring can be any custom function that takes a string and returns a
value. In the example below, only the integer 1 is converted to an integer.
Everything else is retained as a float:
>>> def convert_only_int(val):
... return int(val) if val.isdigit() else val
>>> bf_int = BadgerFish(xml_fromstring=convert_only_int)
>>> dumps(bf_int.data(fromstring('<p><x>1</x><y>2.5</y><z>NaN</z></p>')))
'{"p": {"x": {"$": 1}, "y": {"$": "2.5"}, "z": {"$": "NaN"}}}'
To use a different conversion method, replace BadgerFish with one of the
other classes. Currently, these are supported:
>>> from xmljson import abdera # == xmljson.Abdera() >>> from xmljson import badgerfish # == xmljson.BadgerFish() >>> from xmljson import cobra # == xmljson.Cobra() >>> from xmljson import gdata # == xmljson.GData() >>> from xmljson import parker # == xmljson.Parker() >>> from xmljson import yahoo # == xmljson.Yahoo()
Conventions may support additional options.
The Parker convention absorbs the root element by default.
parker.data(preserve_root=True) preserves the root instance:
>>> from xmljson import parker, Parker
>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import fromstring
>>> from json import dumps
>>> dumps(parker.data(fromstring('<x><a>1</a><b>2</b></x>')))
'{"a": 1, "b": 2}'
>>> dumps(parker.data(fromstring('<x><a>1</a><b>2</b></x>'), preserve_root=True))
'{"x": {"a": 1, "b": 2}}'
This is a pure-Python package built for Python 2.7+ and Python 3.0+. To set up:
pip install xmljson
After installation, you can benefit from using this package as simple CLI utility. By now only XML to JSON conversion supported. Example:
$ python -m xmljson -h
usage: xmljson [-h] [-o OUT_FILE]
[-d {abdera,badgerfish,cobra,gdata,parker,xmldata,yahoo}]
[in_file]
positional arguments:
in_file defaults to stdin
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-o OUT_FILE, --out_file OUT_FILE
defaults to stdout
-d {abdera,badgerfish,...}, --dialect {...}
defaults to parker
$ python -m xmljson -d parker tests/mydata.xml
{
"foo": "spam",
"bar": 42
}
This is a typical UNIX filter program: it reads file (or stdin), processes it in some way (convert XML to JSON in this case), then prints it to stdout (or file). Example with pipe:
$ some-xml-producer | python -m xmljson | some-json-processor
There is also pip's console_script entry-point, you can call this utility as xml2json:
$ xml2json -d abdera mydata.xml
- Test cases for Unicode
- Support for namespaces and namespace prefixes
- Support XML comments