Create XML in Javascript

Question

Is it possible to create an XML file with some data in JavaScript? I have the data stored in variables.

I've googled around a bit and it doesn't seem like it's talked about much. I thought I could use XMLWriter such as this:

var XML = new XMLWriter(); XML.BeginNode ("testing"); XML.Node("testingOne"); XML.Node("TestingTwo"); XML.Node("TestingThree"); XML.EndNode(); 

as stated in this tutorial: EHow Tutorial

However, when I execute this code, I get the following error:

ReferenceError: XMLWriter is not defined

How can I solve this error?

Answer 1

Disclaimer: The following answer assumes that you are using the JavaScript environment of a web browser.

JavaScript handles XML with 'XML DOM objects'. You can obtain such an object in three ways:

1. Creating a new XML DOM object

var xmlDoc = document.implementation.createDocument(null, "books"); 

The first argument can contain the namespace URI of the document to be created, if the document belongs to one.

Source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMImplementation/createDocument

2. Fetching an XML file with XMLHttpRequest

var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() { if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {      var xmlDoc = xhttp.responseXML; //important to use responseXML here } xhttp.open("GET", "books.xml", true); xhttp.send(); 

3. Parsing a string containing serialized XML

var xmlString = "<root></root>"; var parser = new DOMParser(); var xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(xmlString, "text/xml"); //important to use "text/xml" 

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When you have obtained an XML DOM object, you can use methods to manipulate it like

var node = xmlDoc.createElement("heyHo"); var elements = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("root"); elements[0].appendChild(node); 

For a full reference, see http://www.w3schools.com/xml/dom_intro.asp

Note: It is important, that you don't use the methods provided by the document namespace, i. e.

var node = document.createElement("Item"); 

This will create HTML nodes instead of XML nodes and will result in a node with lower-case tag names. XML tag names are case-sensitive in contrast to HTML tag names.

You can serialize XML DOM objects like this:

var serializer = new XMLSerializer(); var xmlString = serializer.serializeToString(xmlDoc);