Converts XML into JSON/Python dicts/arrays and vice-versa.
Project description
This library is not actively maintained. Alternatives are xmltodict and untangle. Use only if you need to parse using specific XML to JSON conventions.
xmljson converts XML into Python dictionary structures (trees, like in JSON) and vice-versa.
About
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
Convert data to XML
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>'
Convert XML to data
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"}}}'
Conventions
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()
Options
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}}'
Installation
This is a pure-Python package built for Python 2.7+ and Python 3.0+. To set up:
pip install xmljson
Simple CLI utility
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
Roadmap
Test cases for Unicode
Support for namespaces and namespace prefixes
Support XML comments
History
0.2.1 (25 Apr 2020)
Bugfix: Don’t strip whitespace in xml text values (@imoore76)
Bugfix: Yahoo convention should convert <x>0</x> into {x: 0}. Empty elements become '' not {}
Suggest alternate libraries in documentation
0.2.0 (21 Nov 2018)
xmljson command line script converts from XML to JSON (@tribals)
invalid_tags='drop' in the constructor drops invalid XML tags in .etree() (@Zurga)
Bugfix: Parker converts {'x': null} to <x></x> instead of <x>None</x> (@jorndoe #29)
0.1.9 (1 Aug 2017)
Bugfix and test cases for multiple nested children in Abdera convention
Thanks to @mukultaneja
0.1.8 (9 May 2017)
Add Parker.data(preserve_root=True) option to preserve root element in Parker convention.
Thanks to @dagwieers
0.1.6 (18 Feb 2016)
Add xml_fromstring= and xml_tostring= parameters to constructor to customise string conversion from and to XML.
0.1.5 (23 Sep 2015)
Add the Yahoo XML to JSON conversion method.
0.1.4 (20 Sep 2015)
Fix GData.etree() conversion of attributes. (They were ignored. They should be added as-is.)
0.1.3 (20 Sep 2015)
Simplify {'p': {'$': 'text'}} to {'p': 'text'} in BadgerFish and GData conventions.
Add test cases for .etree() – mainly from the MDN JXON article.
dict_type/list_type do not need to inherit from dict/list
0.1.2 (18 Sep 2015)
Always use the dict_type class to create dictionaries (which defaults to OrderedDict to preserve order of keys)
Update documentation, test cases
Remove support for Python 2.6 (since we need collections.Counter)
Make the Travis CI build pass
0.1.1 (18 Sep 2015)
Convert true, false and numeric values from strings to Python types
xmljson.parker.data() is compliant with Parker convention (bugs resolved)
0.1.0 (15 Sep 2015)
Two-way conversions via BadgerFish, GData and Parker conventions.
First release on PyPI.
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