Golang : XML to JSON example

For this tutorial, we will learn how to read data from XML file, process the data and save the output to JSON format. Converting XML to JSON data format can be done easily with the Golang's encoding/xml and encoding/json packages.

Create the Employees.xml file with this content :

 <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <company>
 <staff>
 <id>101</id>
 <firstname>Derek</firstname>
 <lastname>Young</lastname>
 <username>derekyoung</username>
 </staff>
 <staff>
 <id>102</id>
 <firstname>John</firstname>
 <lastname>Smith</lastname>
 <username>johnsmith</username>
 </staff>
  </company>

and the code to eat this XML data and poop out JSON file :

 package main

 import (
 "encoding/json"
 "encoding/xml"
 "fmt"
 "io/ioutil"
 "os"
 )

 type jsonStaff struct {
 ID int
 FirstName string
 LastName  string
 UserName  string
 }

 type Staff struct {
 XMLName xml.Name `xml:"staff"`
 ID int `xml:"id"`
 FirstName string `xml:"firstname"`
 LastName  string `xml:"lastname"`
 UserName  string `xml:"username"`
 }

 type Company struct {
 XMLName xml.Name `xml:"company"`
 Staffs  []Staff  `xml:"staff"`
 }

 func (s Staff) String() string {
 return fmt.Sprintf("\t ID : %d - FirstName : %s - LastName : %s - UserName : %s \n", s.ID, s.FirstName, s.LastName, s.UserName)
 }

 func main() {
 xmlFile, err := os.Open("Employees.xml")
 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println("Error opening file:", err)
 return
 }
 defer xmlFile.Close()

 XMLdata, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(xmlFile)

 var c Company
 xml.Unmarshal(XMLdata, &c)

 // sanity check - XML level
 fmt.Println(c.Staffs)

 // convert to JSON
 var oneStaff jsonStaff
 var allStaffs []jsonStaff

 for _, value := range c.Staffs {
 oneStaff.ID = value.ID
 oneStaff.FirstName = value.FirstName
 oneStaff.LastName = value.LastName
 oneStaff.UserName = value.UserName

 allStaffs = append(allStaffs, oneStaff)
 }

 jsonData, err := json.Marshal(allStaffs)

 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println(err)
 os.Exit(1)
 }

 // sanity check - JSON level

 fmt.Println(string(jsonData))

 // now write to JSON file

 jsonFile, err := os.Create("./Employees.json")

 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println(err)
 }
 defer jsonFile.Close()

 jsonFile.Write(jsonData)
 jsonFile.Close()

 }

run the code above and you should be able to see a new Employees.json file appear in the same directory.

Employees.json

  [
 {
 "ID": 101,
 "FirstName": "Derek",
 "LastName": "Young",
 "UserName": "derekyoung"
 },
 {
 "ID": 102,
 "FirstName": "John",
 "LastName": "Smith",
 "UserName": "johnsmith"
 }
 ]

Reference :

https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-convert-csv-data-to-json-format-and-save-to-file