JSON data vs XML data

Posted on 2020-03-28 by Burak Hamdi TUFAN

Hello everyone, in this article we are going to make a comparisation between JSON and XML data types. We will explain what json and xml and after descriptioning compare them.

Let's start to compare now.

What is XML?

XML is a markup language which is using to keep and transfer datas. Stands for eXtensible Markup Language Very basic unit of XML is known as element XML is case sensitive language. It means when you try to specify the element must be careful about element names. File extention of XML files is .xml. In XML you can create custom named elements and you can organize them according to your requires. XML is using for transferring data over the internet.

Below you can see the example of XML:


<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?-->
<aircraft>
  <brand>Airbus</brand>
  <model>A330</model>
  <owner>Burak Airlines</owner>
</aircraft>
<aircraft>
  <brand>Boeing</brand>
  <model>B777</model>
  <owner>Burak Airlines</owner>
</aircraft>

What is JSON?

The word JSON is standing for JavaScript Object Notation. It is fast way to keep and transfer data. JSON generally using for transferring data between client side and server side of an application. JSON is working with key-value pairs and easy to understand language.

JSON has data, array and object. Below I will show examples about these terms:

JSON Data:


"firstname":"Burak Hamdi"

JSON Object example is:


{
     "firstname":"Burak Hamdi",
     "surname":"TUFAN", 
     "website":"thecodeprogram.com" 
}

JSON Array Example is:


"aircrafts":[
    {"brand":"Airbus", "model":"A320"},
    {"brand":"Airbus", "model":"A330"},
    {"brand":"Boeing", "model":"B737"},
    {"brand":"Boeing", "model":"B777"},
]

Now we know What JSON and XML. It is time to compare them.

JSON	XML
JSON object has a type as data, object or array	XML data is typeless
JSON types: string, number, array, Boolean	string is the only data type
Data is readily accessible as JSON objects	XML data needs to be parsed.
JSON is supported by most browsers.	Cross Browsers can parse the XML
Reading value is easy	Reading value is difficult
Supported by many Ajax toolkit	Not fully supported by Ajax toolkit
Native support for object in popular programming languages.	The object has to be express by conventions - mostly missed use of attributes and elements.
Supports only UTF-8 encoding.	Supports various encoding.
It doesn't support comments.	It supports comments.

Advantages of using JSON

All browsers support JSON
Reading and writingis easy.
Readible Syntax
Javascript and Java parse it Nativelly
It is using in many Java Script based Frameworks
You can save it to the databse as text and after reading from database ypou can convert to JSON data.

Advantages of using XML

Transforming datas are easy.
You can seperate the data from HTML in XML.
It has customizable elements.

That is all in this article.

Have a good data transferring.

Burak Hamdi TUFAN