Hi Florent,

Experience has taught us that feature requests that are straightforward to include lead to many new requests that are much harder to satisfy. The same applies to JSON serialization: There are just too many different solutions for serializing XML as JSON (see e.g. [1]), and all of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Here is a trivial example: I think it's surprising, if not questionable, how the following document is serialized by one of the converters you cited [2]:

<xml> <a>x</a> <b></b> <a>z</a> </xml>

{ "xml": { "a": [ "x", "z" ] }

The "b" element is simply discarded, and the "a" elements are represented as array (because a JSON key is unique).

But I immeditalely agree that the JSONML output is not helpful and counter-intuitive in nearly all cases, and I also agree that the overhead imposed by our alternative JSON mapper is inconvenient if existing XML snippets are to be serialized. I can think of two solutions:

a) We provide some more JSON serializers/parsers in BaseX, which allow you to choose one that best matches a given use case b) We motivate users to write their own JSON serializers in XQuery...

Which solution would you prefer? Well, I can guess ;)

Christian

PS: In our own use cases, we integrate custom JSON mappers that do exactly what we need.

[1] http://onwebdevelopment.blogspot.de/2008/05/converting-xml-to-json.html [2] http://www.utilities-online.info/xmltojson

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 9:31 AM, Florent Gallaire fgallaire@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Dirk,

Thank for your answer, but "direct" and "attribute" format are not easy to use, I could even say that they are too hard to use for normal people.

And they need a lot of extra work: <json> root node, _ elements, etc. I just would like an easy way, with no extra work to process arbitrary XML.

An easy use like the jsonml option, but with an useful output.

Cheers

Florent

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 8:38 AM, Dirk Kirsten dk@basex.org wrote:

...

Hello Florent,

JsonML isn't the only way to generate JSON with BaseX; it isn't even the default one. Please take a look at our documentation at http://docs.basex.org/wiki/JSON to see what is available. We agree that JsonML isn't the most convenient format, that's why the BaseX-specific direct format is the default one.

Cheers, Dirk

On 01/05/2015 05:46 AM, Florent Gallaire wrote:

...

Whether my database this XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<mots> <mot> <nom>iatrogène</nom> <racine>gène</racine> </mot> <mot> <nom>hippiatre</nom> <racine>hippo</racine> </mot> </mots>

The only easy way to have JSON serialization with BaseX is to use the "format=jsonml" option which returns: ["mots", ["mot", ["nom", "iatrogène"], ["racine", "gène"]], ["mot", ["nom", "hippiatre"], ["racine", "hippo"]]]

This output is not at all what I need, and think I'm not the only one in this case. A quick search on Google give us simple online tools which have an useful output:

http://codebeautify.org/xmltojson { "mots": { "mot": [ { "nom": "iatrogène", "racine": "gène" }, { "nom": "hippiatre", "racine": "hippo" } ] } }

http://www.utilities-online.info/xmltojson { "mots": { "mot": [ { "nom": "iatrogène", "racine": "gène" }, { "nom": "hippiatre", "racine": "hippo" } ] } }

Could we have this "easyjson" option in BaseX ? I know that it has not at all the power of lossless conversion from JSON to XML and back, like the "direct" and "attributes" options, but who really cares ?

I really think it's what most users need today to use BaseX with client side JSON oriented frameworks.

Best regards

Florent

-- Dirk Kirsten, BaseX GmbH, http://basex.org |-- Firmensitz: Blarerstrasse 56, 78462 Konstanz |-- Registergericht Freiburg, HRB: 708285, Geschäftsführer: | Dr. Christian Grün, Dr. Alexander Holupirek, Michael Seiferle `-- Phone: 0049 7531 28 28 676, Fax: 0049 7531 20 05 22

-- FLOSS Engineer & Lawyer

Thanks a lot for your work Chrisitian. Will the code be merged in the master ?

Best regards

Florent

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Christian Grün christian.gruen@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Florent,

...

b) We motivate users to write their own JSON serializers in XQuery...

As I failed miserably in my attempt to motivate any user out there (it could be that I was too impatient, though), I just wrote a simple XQuery function for serializing XML to JSON. The JSON output is similar to the one generated by your online tools. Please be warned: The code is experimental (it ignores the famous 10% of corner cases), so any patches are welcome.

Have fun, Christian

Hello Christian,

I'm working with BaseX 7.9 and I have a message error:

Stopped at /home/../basex/webapp/simple-json.xqm, 33/27: [XPST0003] Incomplete 'if' expression.

With the BaseX 8.0 dev version I don't have this error.

Florent

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 2:49 AM, Christian Grün christian.gruen@gmail.com wrote:

I'm not sure yet. Does it work for you do far?

Am 10.01.2015 02:25 schrieb "Florent Gallaire" fgallaire@gmail.com:

...

Thanks a lot for your work Chrisitian. Will the code be merged in the master ?

Best regards

Florent

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Christian Grün christian.gruen@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi Florent,

...

b) We motivate users to write their own JSON serializers in XQuery...

As I failed miserably in my attempt to motivate any user out there (it could be that I was too impatient, though), I just wrote a simple XQuery function for serializing XML to JSON. The JSON output is similar to the one generated by your online tools. Please be warned: The code is experimental (it ignores the famous 10% of corner cases), so any patches are welcome.

Have fun, Christian

-- FLOSS Engineer & Lawyer