Re: [xsl] Convert JSON to XML?

["Edward Porter edward.porter@xxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding bloading into a Docker image for the production implementationb,
last year I presented at XML
Prague<https://www.xmlprague.cz/day2-2024/#Containerizing> on containerizing
XML build tools. You might try that path. You could easily build an image with
Saxon and an XProc processor (like MorganaXProc), and the JVM of your choice.
With those tools in place, you could write a pretty simple XProc pipeline to
leverage the XSLT
fn:json-to-xml<https://www.saxonica.com/documentation12/index.html#!functions
/fn/json-to-xml> to generate XML from your JSON inputs. If you pipelinebs
simple enough, you may be able to skip the XProc processor itself and just use
Saxon directly. You can create the image such that itbs effectively a CLI
tool rather than a continuously running container by mounting the appropriate
input and output volumes and configuring the parameters you need to pass to
your pipeline in your dockerfile.


On Thu, May 1, 2025 at 6:35b/PM dvint@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:dvint@xxxxxxxxx>
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxx
rytech.com>> wrote:
I know (and have been using) the xlst json-to-xml() function for this
purpose, but it is a pretty basic result. I happened to try the JSON to
XML funtion in oXygen and got what I'd say is a much better result where
I had some unique elemeent names instead of everything being a map or a
string element.

I was poking around to try and find a tool/library I could use in my
conversion path and everything I'm finding is an online tool or has a
price. Currently I'm developing a conversion pipeline and can leverage
oXygen for this, but I need something I can build into a tool and load
into a Docker image for the production implementation.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Hi Dan,

It is not possible to map JSON to XML in a "correct" way because a JSON
element can only be either a map or a list and not both whereas each XML
element is both a map and a list.
As a result there are many ways to represent the same data.

And frequently what is perceived as "correct" is really not technically or
conceptually.
For example, it is commonplace to do something like the following:

<address>
  <street>123 Main St</street>
  <city>Townville</city>
  <state>PA</state>
</address>

IMO the "correct" form for an XML element is to put values that are not
divisible into attributes which means the truely correct way to represent this
data is:

<address
  street="123 Main St"
  city="Townville"
  state="PA"/>

Anyway, my point is that the only "correct" way to convert JSON to XML is to
understand in advance which of the many XML representations is "correct" for
your particular application and then write code to explicitly perform that
conversion.

It's also not something that necessitates a third party tool as it is almost
trivial to write code to recur through the JSON structure and emit XML text
directly.

Mike

--
Michael B Allen
Java AD DS Integration
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