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 XML format and viceversa?

Answer 1

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 2

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 3

Here is a simple snippet that converts a XmlNode (recursively) into a hashtable, and groups multiple instances of the same child into an array (as an ArrayList). The Hashtable is usually accepted to convert into JSON by most of the JSON libraries.

protected object convert(XmlNode root){
    Hashtable obj = new Hashtable();
    for(int i=0,n=root.ChildNodes.Count;i<n;i++){
        object result = null;
        XmlNode current = root.ChildNodes.Item(i);

        if(current.NodeType != XmlNodeType.Text)
            result = convert(current);
        else{
            int resultInt;
            double resultFloat;
            bool resultBoolean;
            if(Int32.TryParse(current.Value, out resultInt)) return resultInt;
            if(Double.TryParse(current.Value, out resultFloat)) return resultFloat;
            if(Boolean.TryParse(current.Value, out resultBoolean)) return resultBoolean;
            return current.Value;
        }

        if(obj[current.Name] == null)
            obj[current.Name] = result;
        else if(obj[current.Name].GetType().Equals(typeof(ArrayList)))
            ((ArrayList)obj[current.Name]).Add(result);
        else{
            ArrayList collision = new ArrayList();
            collision.Add(obj[current.Name]);
            collision.Add(result);
            obj[current.Name] = collision;
        }
    }

    return obj;
}

Answer 4

Cinchoo ETL - an open source library available to do the conversion of Xml to JSON easily with few lines of code

Xml -> JSON:

using (var p = new ChoXmlReader("sample.xml"))
{
    using (var w = new ChoJSONWriter("sample.json"))
    {
        w.Write(p);
    }
}

JSON -> Xml:

using (var p = new ChoJsonReader("sample.json"))
{
    using (var w = new ChoXmlWriter("sample.xml"))
    {
        w.Write(p);
    }
}

Checkout CodeProject article for some additional help.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of this library.

Answer 5

I have used the below methods to convert the JSON to XML

        List<Item> items;
        public void LoadJsonAndReadToXML()
        {
            using (StreamReader r = new StreamReader(@"E:\Json\overiddenhotelranks.json"))
            {
                string json = r.ReadToEnd();
                items = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Item>>(json);
                ReadToXML();
            }
        }

and

        public void ReadToXML()
        {    
            try
            {
                var xEle = new XElement("Items",
                            from item in items
                            select new XElement("Item",
                                           new XElement("mhid", item.mhid),
                                           new XElement("hotelName", item.hotelName),
                                           new XElement("destination", item.destination),
                                           new XElement("destinationID", item.destinationID),
                                           new XElement("rank", item.rank),
                                           new XElement("toDisplayOnFod", item.toDisplayOnFod),
                                           new XElement("comment", item.comment),
                                           new XElement("Destinationcode", item.Destinationcode),
                                           new XElement("LoadDate", item.LoadDate)
                                       ));

                xEle.Save("E:\\employees.xml");
                Console.WriteLine("Converted to XML");
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            Console.ReadLine();
        }

I have used the class named Item to represent the elements

    public class Item
    {
        public int mhid { get; set; }
        public string hotelName { get; set; }
        public string destination { get; set; }
        public int destinationID { get; set; }
        public int rank { get; set; }
        public int toDisplayOnFod { get; set; }
        public string comment { get; set; }
        public string Destinationcode { get; set; }
        public string LoadDate { get; set; }

    }

It works....

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 } };
}