How are XML attributes handled in the JSON output?

You can choose from three strategies. The @ prefix strategy (default, matching the xmltodict convention) prefixes attribute names with @ — so becomes {"@id": "1", ...}. The _ underscore prefix uses _ instead. The merge strategy drops the prefix entirely and merges attributes directly into the parent object alongside child elements — simpler output but risks key collisions if an attribute and a child element share the same name.

What is Type Inference and should I enable it?

Type Inference automatically converts string values that look like other JSON types into their native equivalents. The string 'true' becomes the boolean true, '42' becomes the number 42, '3.14' becomes 3.14, and 'null' becomes null. Enable it when your XML contains data values that should be strongly typed in JSON — for example, API response fields, configuration values, or numeric data. Leave it off when you need to preserve all values as strings for exact fidelity.

What does Strip Namespaces do?

XML namespaces add a prefix to element names — for example or . In JSON these prefixes often add noise with no value if the consuming application doesn't need them. Strip Namespaces removes the prefix and colon, so soap:Envelope becomes Envelope and ns0:root becomes root. Keep namespaces enabled when the prefix carries semantic meaning that the receiving system requires.

What is the text-node key (#text)?

When an XML element has both a text value and attributes or child elements, the text content cannot simply be the JSON value — it must be stored under a key. This is the text-node key. The xmltodict convention uses #text, making it compatible with Python's xmltodict library. The _text option uses an underscore prefix, and value is a cleaner name for use cases where the output will be consumed by custom code. If an element has only text and no attributes or children, the value is output directly as a JSON string without any wrapper key.

Does the converter handle repeated XML elements as arrays?

Yes. When two or more sibling elements share the same tag name, the converter automatically groups them into a JSON array. If Force Arrays is enabled, even a single element is wrapped in an array — useful when your consuming code always expects an array and the XML may sometimes contain only one item.

Can it handle CDATA sections?

Yes. CDATA sections ( ) are treated as text content and their content is extracted and included as the text value of the parent element, the same as regular text nodes.

Is this tool safe for sensitive data?

Yes. All XML parsing and JSON conversion happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. No data is sent to any server. This tool is safe for use with confidential configuration files, internal API responses, and proprietary data.

What is the difference between this tool and using xmltodict in Python?

This browser-based tool uses the same conventions as Python's xmltodict library by default — @ attribute prefix and #text for text nodes — so the output structure is familiar and compatible. The key advantage of this tool is zero-setup: no Python installation, no library install, no script to write. Paste and convert in seconds.

XML to JSON Converter — Free Online XML to JSON Tool | ToolsForTexts

Introduction to XML to JSON Conversion

XML was the dominant data interchange format of the internet for two decades. SOAP web services, RSS feeds, configuration files, sitemap.xml, Android resources, Microsoft Office documents, and countless enterprise APIs all speak XML. But the web moved on. REST APIs replaced SOAP. JavaScript became the language of the web. JSON — lighter, native to JavaScript, and far easier to read — became the lingua franca of modern data exchange. Today, developers, data engineers, and system integrators face the same challenge every day: their legacy systems, external feeds, or third-party APIs speak XML, but their application stacks expect JSON.

This free XML to JSON converter handles that translation instantly, entirely in your browser. Paste any XML — a REST API response, an RSS feed, a SOAP envelope, a configuration file — and get clean, valid JSON output in real time. No button to press. No server round-trip. No file upload. No sign-up. Just paste and copy.

What separates this tool from basic XML to JSON converters is the breadth of options for controlling exactly how the conversion happens: three attribute strategies (including full xmltodict compatibility), configurable text-node keys, type inference for converting string values to native JSON types, namespace stripping, force-array mode, and two indent sizes. Whether you need a quick one-off conversion or a repeatable workflow with specific structural requirements, this tool covers it.

What This XML to JSON Converter Can Do

Real-Time Live Conversion

Output updates instantly as you type or paste XML — no Convert button required. Change any option (attribute strategy, indent, type inference) and see the JSON update immediately without re-pasting your input.

Three Attribute Strategies

Choose how XML attributes appear in JSON: @ prefix (xmltodict convention, compatible with Python), _ underscore prefix (common in Java libraries), or merged directly into the parent object with no prefix for the cleanest output.

Type Inference

Automatically converts string values to native JSON types: 'true' and 'false' become booleans, '42' becomes an integer, '3.14' becomes a float, and 'null' becomes null. Essential for strongly-typed API integration.

Smart Array Handling

Repeated sibling elements with the same tag name are automatically grouped into JSON arrays. Force Arrays mode wraps even single-child elements in arrays — essential when your consuming code always expects consistent array structure.

Namespace & CDATA Support

Strip Namespaces removes namespace prefixes (soap:Body becomes Body) for cleaner JSON keys. CDATA sections are resolved and their text content extracted automatically, just like regular text nodes.

Configurable Output Format

Choose 2-space indent, 4-space indent, or minified output. Select the text-node key (#text for xmltodict compatibility, _text, or value). All options persist as you switch between samples.

Syntax-Highlighted Output

The JSON output panel renders with full syntax highlighting — keys in indigo, strings in green, numbers in amber, booleans in blue, null in gray. Click anywhere in the output to select all for copy.

100% Browser-Based — Private & Instant

All XML parsing uses the browser's built-in DOMParser API. No data leaves your device. Safe for confidential configuration files, internal API responses, and proprietary data structures.

Who Is This XML to JSON Converter Useful For?

Backend and full-stack developers: Convert SOAP service responses, XML-based REST APIs, and feed data into JSON for consumption in JavaScript, Python, Go, or any modern application stack without writing a parser.
Data engineers and analysts: Transform XML data exports from legacy ERP systems, CRM platforms, and data warehouses into JSON for ingestion into modern data pipelines, databases, and analytics tools.
DevOps and platform engineers: Convert XML configuration files — Spring beans, Maven POMs, Ansible playbooks, Kubernetes XML manifests — into JSON for tooling that expects JSON configuration.
Front-end developers: Parse RSS and Atom feed XML into JSON for display in JavaScript applications without a server-side XML parser, using this tool for quick inspection and transformation.
QA engineers and testers: Inspect and convert SOAP request and response payloads into readable JSON for debugging, logging, and test assertion writing.
System integrators: Bridge legacy XML-based enterprise middleware (SAP, Oracle, IBM MQ) to modern JSON-consuming microservices and APIs during migration projects.
Students and learners: Understand the structural mapping between XML and JSON when learning data formats, web services, and API design by seeing the conversion side-by-side.

What Is XML to JSON Conversion?

XML to JSON conversion is the process of transforming data expressed in XML (Extensible Markup Language) into an equivalent JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) representation. Both formats describe structured, hierarchical data — but they use fundamentally different syntaxes and have different capabilities, which means the mapping is not always one-to-one.

XML elements map naturally to JSON object keys. An XML element's text content maps to a JSON string value. Nested XML elements map to nested JSON objects. Repeated sibling elements with the same name map to JSON arrays. The main complexity arises from XML features that have no direct JSON equivalent: XML attributes (metadata attached to an element tag), XML namespaces (prefix-based scoping), and mixed content (elements containing both text and child elements simultaneously). Different XML-to-JSON conversion conventions — including the widely-used xmltodict convention and the Badgerfish convention — handle these cases differently.

The xmltodict convention, which this tool uses as its default, is the most widely adopted: attributes are prefixed with @, and text content in elements that also have attributes or children is stored under the #text key. This makes the output compatible with Python's xmltodict library, JavaScript's xml2js library, and most Node.js XML parsing tools.

Understanding which convention your target library or API uses is the most important decision in an XML-to-JSON workflow. This tool gives you full control over that convention through its attribute strategy and text-node key options.

Benefits of Using an XML to JSON Converter

Eliminate Manual Transformation Code

Writing XML parsing code from scratch is error-prone and time-consuming. A developer handling XML in JavaScript must either use a DOM parser with verbose API calls, load an external library, or write a recursive transformation function. Each approach introduces code to maintain, test, and debug. For one-off or exploratory conversions — inspecting an API response, migrating a config file, understanding a SOAP payload — a browser-based converter eliminates all of that overhead entirely.

Even for programmatic workflows, this tool serves as the fastest way to inspect what the JSON output of a given XML structure will look like before writing the parsing code — saving significant time in the design and debugging phase.

JSON is smaller. Equivalent JSON representations of XML data are typically 20–40% smaller than the original XML, depending on the verbosity of tag names and attribute structure. This matters for network payloads, API response sizes, and storage efficiency. Converting a high-volume XML data feed to JSON reduces bandwidth costs and improves processing speed downstream.

JSON is native to JavaScript. XML requires a DOM parser in the browser — a multi-step process of parsing, traversing, and extracting. JSON is parsed with a single JSON.parse() call and is immediately usable as a JavaScript object. For web applications that must handle data from XML-based sources, converting to JSON at the edge (or in a preprocessing step) is consistently more efficient.

JSON is compatible with modern tooling. NoSQL databases like MongoDB, DynamoDB, Firestore, and Couchbase all store and query JSON natively. REST APIs universally speak JSON. GraphQL operates on JSON. Data science tools like pandas, Polars, and Arrow have robust JSON readers. Migrating data from XML storage to JSON-native systems requires reliable XML-to-JSON conversion as a foundational step.

Importance of XML to JSON Conversion in Modern Development

Despite JSON's dominance in new API development, XML is far from gone. The SOAP protocol — which runs enormous amounts of enterprise business software — is XML-only. RSS and Atom feeds, used by news aggregators and content distribution networks worldwide, are XML. Android application resources are XML. SVG graphics are XML. Microsoft Office documents (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) are ZIP archives of XML files. The Spring framework for Java is configured with XML. Maven build files are XML. XHTML and many CMS template formats are XML. The scope of XML data that developers encounter daily is vast.

The ability to reliably convert between XML and JSON is therefore not a niche skill — it is a standard requirement in almost every large software system. API gateways like AWS API Gateway and Kong support XML-to-JSON transformation as a first-class feature. Enterprise integration platforms like MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, and Azure Logic Apps include XML-to-JSON transformers as core components. The fact that major commercial platforms invest in this transformation reflects how fundamentally important it is.

For individual developers and small teams, a fast browser-based XML-to-JSON converter saves hours of work per month — debugging SOAP responses, integrating with government data APIs that still speak XML, migrating configuration files, or processing feed data. The compounding time savings across a development team are significant.

How to Use the XML to JSON Converter

Paste Your XML

Paste any valid XML into the left input panel. The JSON output appears immediately in the right panel with syntax highlighting. You can also click one of the four sample buttons — REST API, RSS Feed, SOAP, or Config — to load a pre-built example and explore the output before using your own data.

Choose an Attribute Strategy

If your XML has attributes, select how they should appear in the JSON output. Use @ prefix for xmltodict and xml2js compatibility. Use _ prefix for Java-convention compatibility. Use Merge to include attributes directly in the parent object without any prefix — simplest output, but verify there are no name collisions with child elements.

Enable Type Inference (Recommended)

Turn on Type Inference to automatically convert string values that look like other types into their native JSON equivalents. This produces strongly-typed JSON that is directly usable in typed languages and APIs without additional post-processing. Leave it off only if you need exact string fidelity for all values.

Configure Namespace and Array Handling

If your XML uses namespace prefixes (like soap: or ns0:), enable Strip Namespaces to remove them from the JSON keys. If you need consistent array output regardless of how many sibling elements are present, enable Force Arrays.

Select Indent and Text-Node Key

Choose 2-space or 4-space indent for readable output, or Minified for compact output suitable for storage or transmission. Select the text-node key (#text, _text, or value) that matches the convention expected by your consuming library or code.

Copy or Download the JSON

Click Copy JSON at the top of the output panel for clipboard copy. Click the Download button in the header to save the result as a .json file. The stats bar shows the element count, attribute count, and output character count.

Common Use Cases for XML to JSON Conversion

SOAP API integration: Modern applications consuming legacy SOAP web services receive XML envelope responses. Convert SOAP responses to JSON for easy consumption in JavaScript or Python applications, using Strip Namespaces to remove soap: and xsi: prefixes.
RSS and Atom feed parsing: News aggregators, content APIs, and podcast clients frequently need to parse XML-based RSS and Atom feeds into JSON for storage in a database or delivery via a JSON REST API. The RSS sample in this tool demonstrates the output structure.
XML configuration migration: Spring Boot, Maven, Ant, and many other Java tools use XML configuration. Converting these configurations to JSON during a framework migration provides a structural baseline for the target JSON configuration.
Government and public data APIs: Many government data portals, financial reporting APIs (EDGAR, XBRL), and healthcare data systems (HL7, FHIR XML profiles) publish XML-only data. Converting to JSON makes this data accessible to modern JavaScript and Python tooling.
Android resource files: Android layout XML files, string resources, and manifest files can be converted to JSON for analysis, tooling, or migration to React Native or other cross-platform frameworks.
E-commerce product feeds: Google Merchant Center, Amazon, and many e-commerce platforms accept product feeds in XML format. Converting these feeds to JSON enables processing in modern data pipelines.
Microsoft Office file inspection: DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files contain XML inside ZIP archives. Extracting and converting these XML files to JSON allows programmatic inspection of document structure and metadata.
IoT and embedded system data: Many IoT devices and industrial control systems emit data in XML format over MQTT or HTTP. Converting to JSON enables ingestion into JSON-native time-series databases and analytics platforms.

Best Practices for XML to JSON Conversion

Validate your XML before converting: The converter reports parse errors with line numbers, but it is faster to validate your XML in an XML validator first if you suspect it may be malformed. Well-formed XML is a prerequisite for any conversion tool.
Match the attribute strategy to your consuming library: If your code uses Python's xmltodict, use the @ prefix strategy. If it uses a Java XML library, the _ prefix is common. If your code parses the JSON directly without a library intermediary, Merge may produce the cleanest structure. Mismatched conventions cause key-not-found errors that are tedious to debug.
Always verify array handling: The most common XML-to-JSON bug in production is inconsistent array handling: an element is sometimes a JSON object (when there is one child) and sometimes a JSON array (when there are multiple). Enable Force Arrays if your consuming code always expects arrays, or handle both cases in your code with an Array.isArray() check.
Enable Type Inference for API data: Numeric and boolean values stored as XML text are almost always intended to be numbers and booleans — they were stored as strings only because XML has no native number type. Type Inference converts them back to their intended types, preventing downstream parsing bugs.
Use Strip Namespaces for SOAP responses: SOAP XML is heavily namespaced. Unless your code specifically needs the namespace prefixes (rare in consuming applications), strip them for cleaner JSON keys that are easier to access with standard dot notation.
Choose minified output for storage and transmission: Indented JSON is for human readability. For database storage, API payloads, or file archiving, use the minified output — it is functionally identical but significantly smaller.
Test with real data, not just samples: XML in production often contains edge cases — empty elements, elements with only whitespace, unusual character encodings, nested CDATA, or deeply recursive structures. Always test your conversion workflow with representative production data before deploying.

Top XML to JSON Converters in the Market

This XML to JSON Converter (current tool): Real-time conversion, three attribute strategies, type inference, namespace stripping, force arrays, configurable text-node key, syntax-highlighted output, stats panel. Fully browser-based, zero dependencies, no upload. The most configurable free online XML-to-JSON tool available.
jsonformatter.org XML to JSON: Clean interface with URL-based XML loading. Supports copy, save, and share. No attribute strategy options, no type inference, no namespace handling. Good for basic conversions when you need a shareable link to the result.
codebeautify.org XML to JSON: Supports paste, URL loading, and file upload. Has a Beautify JSON option. No attribute strategy selection, no type inference configuration. Good for users who need file upload support.
FreeFormatter.com XML to JSON: Supports configurable attribute prefix (@ by default) and text-node key customisation. One of the more configurable free tools. Interface is dated; conversion requires a button press rather than live output.
JSONLint XML to JSON: Clean, modern interface. Handles attributes and namespaces. No output format configuration. Part of a broader JSON tooling suite which is useful for validating the resulting JSON.
site24x7.com XML to JSON: Simple paste-and-convert interface. Fixed @ prefix for attributes and #text for text nodes. No configuration options. Best for users who want a single-purpose tool with no decisions to make.

How to Choose the Right XML to JSON Converter

If you need xmltodict compatibility: Use a tool that supports the @ attribute prefix and #text text-node key conventions — the defaults in this tool. This ensures the JSON output is directly parseable by Python's xmltodict library without any post-processing.
If your XML is heavily namespaced (SOAP, WSDL): Choose a tool with a Strip Namespaces option. Without it, your JSON keys will contain namespace prefixes that make them inaccessible via standard dot notation in most languages.
If you need strongly-typed JSON: Choose a tool with Type Inference. XML stores everything as strings — a tool without type inference will produce JSON where all values are strings, requiring downstream parsing to recover the correct types.
If array consistency matters: For production code consuming the converted JSON, you need a tool with a Force Arrays option. Without it, the structure of the JSON changes based on how many elements happen to be in the XML — a source of subtle, hard-to-reproduce bugs.
If privacy is a concern: Use a browser-based tool that processes data client-side. Never paste confidential XML (API keys, customer data, internal config) into a tool that uploads to a server.
If you need bulk or automated conversion: For recurring or large-volume conversions, consider a programmatic approach: Python's xmltodict, JavaScript's xml2js or fast-xml-parser, or a platform integration tool (n8n, MuleSoft). Browser tools are best for inspection and one-off conversions.

External Resources & Further Reading

W3C XML Specification: w3.org/TR/xml/ — the authoritative W3C specification for XML 1.0, defining the syntax rules, character encoding requirements, and structural constraints that all valid XML must satisfy.
ECMA-404 JSON Data Interchange Standard: ecma-international.org — ECMA-404 — the official ECMA standard defining the JSON data interchange format, including data types, string encoding, and structural grammar.
Python xmltodict library documentation: github.com/martinblech/xmltodict — the most widely-used Python library for XML-to-JSON conversion, whose @ attribute prefix and #text text-node key conventions this tool uses as its default settings.
Node.js fast-xml-parser documentation: github.com/NaturalIntelligence/fast-xml-parser — a high-performance JavaScript/TypeScript XML parser with rich configuration options for attribute handling, array enforcement, and type coercion, used in production Node.js applications.
MDN Web Docs — DOMParser API: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMParser — documentation for the browser-native DOMParser API used by this tool to parse XML without any external library dependencies.
W3Schools XML Tutorial: w3schools.com/xml/ — a comprehensive introductory reference for XML syntax, namespaces, DTD, and XPath, useful for developers learning XML before working with XML-to-JSON conversion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q.How are XML attributes converted to JSON?

You have three options. The @ prefix strategy (default) converts <user id='1'> to {"@id": "1"}, matching the xmltodict and xml2js conventions used in Python and JavaScript libraries. The _ prefix strategy produces {"_id": "1"}, which is the convention in some Java XML libraries. The Merge strategy produces {"id": "1"} with no prefix at all — the cleanest output, but it can cause key collisions if an attribute and a child element share the same name.

Q.What happens when the same XML element appears multiple times?

Repeated sibling elements with the same tag name are automatically grouped into a JSON array. For example, multiple <item> elements inside <channel> become an array: {"channel": {"item": [{...}, {...}]}}. If Force Arrays is enabled, even a single <item> element is wrapped in an array — ensuring consistent structure that your consuming code can always rely on.

Q.Does the tool handle XML namespaces?

Yes. By default, namespace prefixes are preserved in the JSON output — <soap:Body> becomes {"soap:Body": {...}}. Enable Strip Namespaces to remove the prefix and colon, converting soap:Body to Body and xmlns attributes are skipped entirely regardless of the strip setting. Note that stripping namespaces can cause key collisions if two elements in different namespaces share the same local name — inspect the output carefully.

Q.What is Type Inference and when should I use it?

Type Inference automatically converts string values that represent other JSON types into their native equivalents. The string 'true' becomes the boolean true, '42' becomes the number 42, '3.14' becomes a float, 'null' becomes null. Enable it whenever your XML contains numeric data, boolean flags, or null values encoded as strings — which is nearly always the case in real XML APIs. Disable it only when you need to preserve all values as strings for exact fidelity.

Q.What does the text-node key do?

When an XML element has both text content and attributes or child elements, the text cannot be stored as the direct JSON value — a JSON object is needed to hold all the components. The text is stored under a designated key: #text (xmltodict convention), _text, or value. For leaf elements with only text content and no attributes or children, the value is returned directly as a JSON string with no wrapper key.

Q.Can this tool convert SOAP XML responses?

Yes. Load the SOAP sample using the SOAP button to see an example. For most SOAP use cases, enable Strip Namespaces (to remove soap:, xsi:, and custom namespace prefixes) and Type Inference (to convert numeric and boolean fields). The @ attribute prefix strategy is appropriate for most SOAP response processing.

Q.Is this tool compatible with Python's xmltodict library?

Yes — the default settings (@ attribute prefix, #text text-node key) match the xmltodict conventions exactly. JSON output from this tool in default mode has the same structure as xmltodict.parse() output for the same XML input, making it directly usable for testing and debugging Python code that uses xmltodict.

Q.Is my XML data sent to a server?

No. XML parsing uses the browser's built-in DOMParser API, and JSON serialization uses the browser's built-in JSON.stringify. No network requests are made and no data leaves your device. This tool is safe for confidential configuration files, internal API payloads, and proprietary data structures.

Conclusion

XML remains deeply embedded in the infrastructure of enterprise software, government data systems, legacy APIs, and content distribution formats — and JSON is the format that modern applications, databases, and APIs expect. Bridging that gap quickly and correctly is a routine requirement for developers, data engineers, and system integrators across every industry.

This free browser-based XML to JSON converter handles the conversion with more configurability than any other free online tool: three attribute strategies for library compatibility, type inference for strongly-typed output, namespace stripping for SOAP and namespaced XML, force-array mode for consistent structure, and configurable indent and text-node key settings. All processing happens entirely in your browser — no server, no upload, no sign-up — and the output updates in real time as you type or adjust options.

Whether you need to inspect a SOAP response, convert an RSS feed, migrate a configuration file, or integrate a legacy XML API into a modern JSON application stack, paste your XML and get valid, correctly structured JSON in seconds.

XML to JSON