XML to JSON Converter

XML attributes (like id='123' or class='active' in <element id='123' class='active'>) become JSON properties prefixed with @ symbol by default. For example, <book id='42' lang='en'> becomes { '@id': '42', '@lang': 'en', ... } in JSON. This convention keeps attributes distinguishable from child elements. Text content of an element that also has attributes is stored in a special #text property. So <name priority='high'>John</name> becomes { '@priority': 'high', '#text': 'John' }. This is the standard convention used by most XML-to-JSON libraries (including the popular xml2js Node.js package) and makes it easy to distinguish between an element's metadata (attributes) and its actual content (text).

Yes. XML namespaces (the xmlns:prefix='URI' declarations you see in documents like SOAP envelopes, SVG files, or SAML assertions) are preserved during conversion. A namespaced element like <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'> will have the namespace information retained in the JSON output. The prefix is retained in the key name (e.g., 'soap:Envelope' stays as-is or is expanded to the full URI depending on configuration). Namespace declarations appearing as attributes (@xmlns:soap) are treated like other attributes. This is important when you're working with complex XML documents like WSDL files, Microsoft Office Open XML, or Google's KML format — all of which rely heavily on namespaces for element identification.

The tool handles files up to several megabytes comfortably, but extremely large XML documents (50MB+) may cause browser memory issues or slow down conversion. Since parsing happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript, performance depends on your device's available RAM and CPU. For typical use cases — API responses (usually under 500KB), configuration files, RSS feeds, SVG documents — you'll see near-instant conversion even for files with thousands of elements. If you're hitting performance limits with huge files, try splitting the XML into smaller chunks (by parent element), or use a command-line tool like xmlstarlet or Python's xmltodict library for server-side processing. For batch conversions of many files, consider building a script with xmllint or Saxon.

Yes. CDATA sections (<![CDATA[content that may contain <, >, & unescaped]]>) are treated as regular text content during conversion. In the resulting JSON, the CDATA content becomes a simple string value without the CDATA markers. This is expected behavior — CDATA is just a way to include text that contains characters that would otherwise need XML escaping. The actual content is preserved exactly as-is. If your application specifically needs to track which text came from CDATA sections (rare, but some legacy systems care), you would need a more sophisticated parser that preserves this metadata. For 99% of use cases, treating CDATA as regular text content is the correct behavior.

Absolutely not. All conversion happens locally within your browser using JavaScript. Your XML data is never uploaded to any server, stored in any database, or transmitted over the network. When you close the tab or navigate away, the data is gone. This makes the tool safe for converting documents containing sensitive information: API keys in configuration files, personal data in XML exports, internal system credentials, or proprietary data structures. You can verify this by opening your browser's Network tab — you'll see no requests are made when you click Convert. For additional security assurance, you can disconnect from the internet entirely and the tool will still work perfectly.