Elegant way to make Array from xml (string)

Question

i need to make Array for data grid.

Input is XML(string). With lots of unnecessary data, i need only array "a:Client"

Here is my code which works, but I think it's not too clean to set a way like this.

parse(XML){
    var parseString = require('react-native-xml2js').parseString;
    var xml = XML;
    parseString(xml, (err, result) => {
    this.setState({rows: result["s:Envelope"]["s:Body"][0].GetClientsResponse[0].GetClientsResult[0]["a:Client"]});
    });
}

Here is XML String

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><s:Body><GetClientsResponse xmlns="http://tempuri.org/"><GetClientsResult xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/tt4t.Dispatching.ApplicationServer.Data.CommonData" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><a:Client><a:ClientID>0</a:ClientID><a:Name/></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>12</a:ClientID><a:Name>Magistrát města Liberec</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>30</a:ClientID><a:Name>Krajský úřad Libereckého kraje</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>31</a:ClientID><a:Name>OC Nisa</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>32</a:ClientID><a:Name>Globus</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>33</a:ClientID><a:Name>Die Länderbahn GmbH DLB</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>34</a:ClientID><a:Name>Magistrát města Jablonec nad Nisou</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>35</a:ClientID><a:Name>Dopravní podnik měst Liberce a Jablonce n.N.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>36</a:ClientID><a:Name>Liplastec</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>37</a:ClientID><a:Name>CBRE Česká republika</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>38</a:ClientID><a:Name>Cinestar</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>39</a:ClientID><a:Name>České dráhy a.s.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>40</a:ClientID><a:Name>DENSO MANUFACTURING CZECH s.r.o.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>41</a:ClientID><a:Name>Hasiči</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>42</a:ClientID><a:Name>MŠ Lísteček ((N.Ruda)</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>43</a:ClientID><a:Name>MŠ Tanvaldská (vč. pobočky Poštovní)</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>44</a:ClientID><a:Name>Policie ČR</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>45</a:ClientID><a:Name>SOŠ Kateřinky</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>46</a:ClientID><a:Name>Sportkids</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>47</a:ClientID><a:Name>SŽDC, s.o.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>48</a:ClientID><a:Name>Záchranná služba</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>49</a:ClientID><a:Name>ZŠ Nad Školou</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>50</a:ClientID><a:Name>SKI KLUB Jizerska 50</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>51</a:ClientID><a:Name>TJ Dukla Liberec, z.s.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>52</a:ClientID><a:Name>Jiný, viz poznámka</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>53</a:ClientID><a:Name>KORID LK, spol. s r.o.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>54</a:ClientID><a:Name>STUDENT AGENCY k.s.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>55</a:ClientID><a:Name>Boveraclub z.s.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>56</a:ClientID><a:Name>Archa 13</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>57</a:ClientID><a:Name>Pekárny</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>58</a:ClientID><a:Name>MŠ Sídliště - Skloněná</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>59</a:ClientID><a:Name>Vratislavice</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>60</a:ClientID><a:Name>První festivalová s.r.o.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>61</a:ClientID><a:Name>Městský obvod Liberec - Vratislavice nad Nisou</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>62</a:ClientID><a:Name>Preciosa</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>63</a:ClientID><a:Name>Central Europe Spartan Race ESR Enterprises Czech</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>64</a:ClientID><a:Name>Kümpers Textil, s.r.o.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>65</a:ClientID><a:Name>Základní škola a Mateřská škola, Stráž n.N.</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>66</a:ClientID><a:Name>Základní škola a mateřská škola logopedická, LBC</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>165</a:ClientID><a:Name>Zájezd stř. 704</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>166</a:ClientID><a:Name>DPMLJ X11</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>167</a:ClientID><a:Name>DPMLJ 2 a 3</a:Name></a:Client><a:Client><a:ClientID>168</a:ClientID><a:Name>DPMLJ 5 a 11</a:Name></a:Client></GetClientsResult></GetClientsResponse></s:Body></s:Envelope>

can you share your XML string? – Pranay Kumar Jun 15 '18 at 06:57 — Pranay Kumar, Jun 15 '18 at 06:57

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 15 '18 at 06:40

Your code works, but I think that it have two things that can be done better....

1) It's not readable, if you'll read this code in a year it'll be difficult to understand what you are looking for, so I would wrap that:

{rows: result["s:Envelope"]["s:Body"][0].GetClientsResponse[0].GetClientsResult[0]["a:Client"]}

in a function like:

getClient(result)

2) It's not reusable, if the XML change or you need to find some other data it'll break, so try to use a function with a parameter that finds exactly what you need recursively if necessary

(You can give a look here, I know that you have array, but you can search recursively also for your arrays)

Pranay Kumar · Answer 2 · 2018-06-16T04:38:25.853

The only thing I worry about the above code is that it missed error checking. I am sure how confident that you are about your API and the schema will behave as expected. I feel it is good to have error checking when you are accessing a nested property of a nested object.

afterParsing(err, result){
    if(err){
        // Handle error
        return [];
    }
    try {
        const res = result["s:Envelope"]["s:Body"][0].GetClientsResponse[0].GetClientsResult[0]["a:Client"];
        return res;
    } catch (error) {
        return [];
    }
}
parse(XML){
    var parseString = require('react-native-xml2js').parseString;
    var xml = XML;
    parseString(xml, (err, result) => {
        this.setState({rows: this.afterParsing(err, result)});// if afterParsing and this function are in the class
    });
}

If this piece of code is going to be run in the browser you can also try DOMParser.

const stringContainingXMLSource = `<your xml string>`;
var parser = new DOMParser();
var doc = parser.parseFromString(stringContainingXMLSource, "application/xml");
console.log(Array.from(doc.querySelectorAll('Envelope > Body > GetClientsResponse > GetClientsResult > Client')).map(n => n.textContent));

Elegant way to make Array from xml (string)

2 Answers2