How can I make jQuery.parseXML work in node.js

Question

I am trying to use jQuery parseXml in node.js

I am getting this error:

Error: Invalid XML: <?xml version="1.0"...

But the problem is not in the XML

The problem is in node-jquery.js:

parseXML: function( data ) {
        if ( typeof data !== "string" || !data ) {
            return null;
        }
        var xml, tmp;
        try {
            if ( window.DOMParser ) { // Standard
                tmp = new DOMParser();
                xml = tmp.parseFromString( data , "text/xml" );
            } else { // IE
                xml = new ActiveXObject( "Microsoft.XMLDOM" );
                xml.async = "false";
                xml.loadXML( data );
            }
        } catch( e ) {
            xml = undefined;
        }
        if ( !xml || !xml.documentElement || xml.getElementsByTagName( "parsererror" ).length ) {
            jQuery.error( "Invalid XML: " + data );
        }
        return xml;
    },

To put it simply, in node.js, there is no DOMParser, and there is no ActiveXObject( "Microsoft.XMLDOM" )

Since I am working in windows, I would expect ActiveXObject to work, but no, it does not, the actual error swallowed by jQuery is not an invalid XML it is that ActiveXObject is not defined:

ReferenceError: ActiveXObject is not defined
at Module._compile (module.js:449:26)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:467:10)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
at Module.runMain (module.js:492:10)
at process.startup.processNextTick.process._tickCallback (node.js:244:

Any workarounds for this? How can I make jQuery.parseXML work?

Answer 1

I've had great success using xmldom. Take a look. It seems to parse an xml just like you would expect $.parseXML to. I was also having problems with the jquery parser and switched to this one after trying a bunch out.