xml2json

name	xml2json
description	Use when converting XML documents into pretty-printed JSON for downstream parsing, provided the legacy Perl XML::Simple dependency is available.
disable-model-invocation	true
user-invocable	true

xml2json

Quick Start

• Command: cat record.xml | xml2json > record.json
• Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/xml2json
• Full reference: references/help.md

When To Use This Tool

• Convert XML payloads into pretty-printed JSON for downstream scripting.
• Bridge XML-producing NCBI / EDirect commands into JSON-oriented tools.
• Inspect XML structure in a friendlier key/value form when the legacy converter dependency is available.

Common Patterns

# 1) Convert an XML document from stdin into JSON
cat record.xml | xml2json > record.json

# 2) Stream XML into JSON and inspect the first lines
cat record.xml | xml2json | sed -n '1,40p'

Recommended Workflow

1. Confirm the XML input is the actual payload you want to convert, not a filename string or shell fragment.
2. Pipe the XML into xml2json; the script reads stdin wholesale.
3. Validate that the Perl dependencies load before trying a batch conversion.
4. Inspect the first JSON objects before handing them to downstream code.

Guardrails

• This script is a Perl program that reads only from stdin and depends on XML::Simple plus JSON::PP.
• In the current environment it cannot start because XML::Simple.pm is missing, and --help / --version fail with the same dependency error.
• Because it uses XML::Simple, the output structure can collapse repeated XML elements into arrays/hashes in ways that differ from hand-written JSON schemas.
• Treat this as a legacy converter and validate its JSON shape on representative XML before building automation around it.