JSON-to-XML Conversion Module for Python

XML Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟JSON-to-XML Conversion Module for Python

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use a 'xmltodict' conversion module to perform JSON-to-XML conversions in a Python script. The output XML document is good, only if input XML document contains well structured data.

If you are familiar with Python language, you can try to use the "xmltodict" module to convert your JSON document to an XML document.

1. Install "xmltodict" module, if it's not done yet.

herong$ pip3 install xmltodict 

Collecting xmltodict
Installing collected packages: xmltodict
Successfully installed xmltodict-0.12.0

2. Create a Python script, JSON-to-XML.py to use the "xmltodict" library to convert a JSON document to an XML document:

# JSON-to-XML.py
# Copyright (c) 2018 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.

import xmltodict
import json
import sys

file = sys.argv[1]
with open(file) as input:
  jsonStr = input.read()
obj = json.loads(jsonStr)
xmlStr = xmltodict.unparse(obj)
print(xmlStr)

3. Run JSON-to-XML.py to convert our JSON sample document, sample.json:

herong$ python3 JSON-to-XML.py sample.json 
<dictionary>
  <word>
    <update>
      <date>2020-01-01</date>
    </update>
    <name>
      <is acronym>true</is acronym>
      <value>DTD</value>
    </name>
    <definition>Document Type Definition</definition>
    <origin></origin>
  </word>
  <word>
    <update>
      <date>1000-01-01</date>
    </update>
    <name>
      <is acronym>false</is acronym>
      <value>Dog</value>
    </name>
    <definition>A domesticated carnivorous mammal</definition>
    <origin>docga</origin>
  </word>
</dictionary>

As you can see, this conversion library uses almost the same conversion rules as I suggested, except that special characters in the JSON property names are not replaced. For example, "is acronym" is used as an XML element name directly, which results an invalid XML document.