👀 Views: 8066 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-09

xml json python xmltodict Python

I'm updating my dependencies and I'm facing a challenge when converting XML to JSON in Python using the `xmltodict` library. My XML structure is quite nested, and I'm noticing that some elements are getting flattened in the resulting JSON. Specifically, I have an XML file that looks like this: ```xml <root> <item> <name>Item1</name> <details> <description>First item description</description> <attributes> <color>red</color> <size>large</size> </attributes> </details> </item> <item> <name>Item2</name> <details> <description>Second item description</description> <attributes> <color>blue</color> <size>medium</size> </attributes> </details> </item> </root> ``` When I convert this using the following code: ```python import xmltodict import json with open('file.xml') as xml_file: data_dict = xmltodict.parse(xml_file.read()) json_data = json.dumps(data_dict) print(json_data) ``` The output JSON seems to lose the nested structure of the `details` element, giving me something like this: ```json { "root": { "item": [ { "name": "Item1", "details": "{ 'description': 'First item description', 'attributes': ... }" }, { "name": "Item2", "details": "{ 'description': 'Second item description', 'attributes': ... }" } ] } } ``` I want `details` to remain an object instead of being coerced into a string. I've tried setting the `xmltodict` options to `attr_type=False`, but that didn't help. I've also checked the XML structure to ensure it's well-formed. Can anyone suggest how to properly handle nested elements so that they are preserved when converting to JSON? I'm using Python 3.8 and `xmltodict` version 0.12.0. What am I doing wrong?