Convert Embedded JSON to XML using XSLT - json

Question

When transforming an XML document with XSLT, is it possible to convert embedded JSON (i.e. JSON formatted content) in the process?
For example the following: -
<form>
<data>[{"id":1,"name":"Hello"},{"id":2,"name":"World"}]</data>
</form>
Would be converted to: -
<form>
<data>
<id name="Hello">1</id>
<id name="World">2</id>
</data>
</form>

Answer 1

Parsing JSON is supported in XSLT 3.0 so using the commercial versions of Saxon 9.7 you could use
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions/math"
exclude-result-prefixes="xs math"
version="3.0">
<xsl:output indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:mode on-no-match="shallow-copy"/>
<xsl:template match="data">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="parse-json(.)?*"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match=".[. instance of map(xs:string, item())]">
<id name="{.?name}">
<xsl:value-of select=".?id"/>
</id>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Using the open source version of Saxon 9.7 (i.e. Saxon 9.7 HE) the following takes up the suggestion made by wero to use json-to-xml and shows how to implement the requirement:
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:fn="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions"
xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions/math"
exclude-result-prefixes="xs math fn"
version="3.0">
<xsl:output indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template match="#* | node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#* | node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="data">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="json-to-xml(.)//fn:map"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="fn:map">
<id name="{fn:string[#key = 'name']}">
<xsl:value-of select="fn:number[#key = 'id']"/>
</id>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Saxon 9.7 HE is available on Maven and from http://saxon.sourceforge.net/

Answer 2

It should be possible in XSLT 3.0, given that it has a json-to-xml function:
Parses a string supplied in the form of a JSON text, returning the
results in the form of an XML document node.
You could try to get this to run with the current implementation in Saxon.