JSON corresponding to an XML with attributes

Question

Hi all.

I am designing an API for my webapp.

I was thinking to support only JSON responses (not XML) because more streamlined.

But I have just bumped to this XML:

<folders>
    <folder id="123" private="0" archived="0" order="1">Shopping</folder>
</folders>

and I was wondering how the corresponding JSON would be. I have the feeling, in this case, XML would be more compact.

Thanks, Dan

Answer 1

Could be compact in the JSON too, attribute is just the same as the value inside tag

from here:

http://www.json.org/example.html

{"widget": {
    "debug": "on",
    "window": {
        "title": "Sample Konfabulator Widget",
        "name": "main_window",
        "width": 500,
        "height": 500
    },
    "image": { 
        "src": "Images/Sun.png",
        "name": "sun1",
        "hOffset": 250,
        "vOffset": 250,
        "alignment": "center"
    }
}}  

The same text expressed as XML:

<widget>
    <debug>on</debug>
    <window title="Sample Konfabulator Widget">
        <name>main_window</name>
        <width>500</width>
        <height>500</height>
    </window>
    <image src="Images/Sun.png" name="sun1">
        <hOffset>250</hOffset>
        <vOffset>250</vOffset>
        <alignment>center</alignment>
    </image>
</widget>

Answer 2

Excluding the attribute names that are always same length, JSON will be always more compact as just does not have closing tags ;)

Answer 3

JSON is more uniform than XML and doesn't distinguish between plain-text attributes and hierarchical contents. The natural representation for your example would be

[
  {"id": 123, "private": 0, "archived": 0, "order": 1, "name": "Shopping"}
]

This is still more compact than the respective XML.

Answer 4

Perhaps:

{
  "folders": [
    { "id":123, "private":0, "archived":0, "order":1, "title":"Shopping" },
    ...
  ]
}

Because there is not an exact correspondence between XML and JSON, you are free (e.g. have to define) how the two data-structures map. For instance, in the above, the "folder" element is implicit in the nested objects in the "folders" array.

This could be expanded as in:

"folders": [{"folder": { .... }]

Etc, but there is still the problem of not being able to capture content+attributes as consistently as XML. In any case, your data-structure -> JSON|XML serializer likely works in a particular way (and please, please, use a library, not "hand-rolled" JSON-string-munging). That is; the format of the XML and JSON should be uniformly dictated (somehow) by the data-structure for transmission.

Answer 5

An example of how YQL presents XML and the corresponding JSON. No need to know anything about YQL to understand this but if you are interested your can check the YQL console and try it out yourself in the YQL console

XML

<results>
    <a href="/">NBA</a>
    <a class="topnav" href="#">TEAMS</a>
    <a href="/teams/">Teams</a>
    <a href="/hawks/">Atlanta</a>

JSON

"results": {
  "a": [
    {
     "href": "/",
     "content": "NBA"
    },
    {
     "class": "topnav",
     "href": "#",
     "content": "TEAMS"
    },
    {
     "href": "/teams/",
     "content": "Teams"
    },
    {
     "href": "/hawks/",
     "content": "Atlanta"
    },