Python – XML to JSON

A JSON file is a file that stores simple data structures and objects in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, which is a standard data interchange format. It is primarily used for transmitting data between a web application and a server. A JSON object contains data in the form of a key/value pair. The keys are strings and the values are the JSON types. Keys and values are separated by a colon. Each entry (key/value pair) is separated by a comma. JSON files are lightweight, text-based, human-readable, and can be edited using a text editor.

Note: For more information, refer to Working With JSON Data in Python

XML is a markup language which is designed to store data. It is case sensitive. XML offers you to define markup elements and generate customized markup language. The basic unit in the XML is known as an element. The XML language has no predefined tags. It simplifies data sharing, data transport, platform changes, data availability Extension of an XML file is .xml

Note: For more information, refer to XML | Basics

Both JSON and XML file format are used for transferring data between client and server. 

However, they both serve the same purpose though differ in their own way.

Comparison between JSON and XML

JSON	XML
JSON object has a type	XML data is typeless
JSON types: string, number, array, Boolean	All XML data should be string
Data is readily accessible as JSON objects	XML data needs to be parsed
JSON is supported by most browsers	Cross-browser XML parsing can be tricky
JSON has no display capabilities	XML offers the capability to display data because it is a markup language
JSON supports only text and number data type.	XML support various data types such as number, text, images, charts, graphs, etc. It also provides options for transferring the structure or format of the data with actual data.
Retrieving value is easy	Retrieving value is difficult
Supported by many Ajax toolkit	Not fully supported by Ajax toolkit
A fully automated way of deserializing/serializing JavaScript	Developers have to write JavaScript code to serialize/de-serialize from XML
Native support for object	The object has to be express by conventions – mostly missed use of attributes and elements.
It supports only UTF-8 encoding.	It supports various encoding
It doesn’t support comments.	It supports comments.
JSON files are easy to read as compared to XML.	XML documents are relatively more difficult to read and interpret.
It does not provide any support for namespaces	It supports namespaces.
It is less secured.	It is more secure than JSON.

Converting Xml to json

Method 1: Using xmltodict and json module

To handle the JSON file format, Python provides a module named json.

STEP 1: Install xmltodict module using pip or any other python package manager  

pip install xmltodict

STEP 2: import json module using the keyword import 

import json

STEP 3: Read the xml file here, “data_dict” is the variable in which we have loaded our XML data after converting it to dictionary datatype. 

with open("xml_file.xml") as xml_file:
    data_dict = xmltodict.parse(xml_file.read())

STEP 4: Convert the xml_data into a dictionary and store it in a variable JSON object are surrounded by curly braces { }. They are written in key and value pairs.

• json.loads() takes in a string and returns a json object. 
• json.dumps() takes in a json object and returns a string. 
• We use xml_data as input string and generate python object, so we use json.dumps() 

json_data = json.dumps(data_dict)

Here, json_data is the variable used to store the generated object.

STEP 5: Write the json_data to output file 

with open("data.json", "w") as json_file:
        json_file.write(json_data)

Example:
XML File:

Python – XML to JSON

Python3

# Program to convert an xml
# file to json file

# import json module and xmltodict
# module provided by python
import json
import xmltodict


# open the input xml file and read
# data in form of python dictionary
# using xmltodict module
with open("test.xml") as xml_file:

    data_dict = xmltodict.parse(xml_file.read())
    # xml_file.close()

    # generate the object using json.dumps()
    # corresponding to json data

    json_data = json.dumps(data_dict)

    # Write the json data to output
    # json file
    with open("data.json", "w") as json_file:
        json_file.write(json_data)
        # json_file.close()

Output:

xml to json

Method 2:  Using the built-in Python module

XML File

Python3

import xml.etree.ElementTree as E
tree = E.parse('a.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
d={}
for child in root:
    if child.tag not in d:
        d[child.tag]=[]
    dic={}
    for child2 in child:
        if child2.tag not in dic:
            dic[child2.tag]=child2.text
    d[child.tag].append(dic)
print(d)

Output:

{
'details': 
[{'firstname': 'Shiv', 'lastname': 'Mishra', 'title': 'Engineer', 'division': 
'Computer', 'building': '301', 'room': '11'},
 {'firstname': 'Yuh', 'lastname': 'Datta', 'title': 'developer', 'division':
  'Computer', 'building': '303', 'room': '02'},
 {'firstname': 'Rahil', 'lastname': 'Khan', 'title': 'Tester', 'division':
  'Computer', 'building': '304', 'room': '10'},
 {'firstname': 'Deep', 'lastname': 'Parekh', 'title': 'Designer', 'division': 
 'Computer', 'building': '305', 'room': '14'}]
}