AX2012 JSON 2 XML converter

While writing some code for the Exchange Rate Provider class, I ran across an issue where some exchange rate provider APIs only gave JSON output instead of XML.  I found very little in Dynamics AX that would let me deserialize JSON.  The only alternative was to manually parse the data based on the structure provided at the time.

I didn't like that approach.  Manually parsing data like that can be a nightmare.  The only tools I know of in Dynamics AX are the XML tools.  With that in mind, I decided to write a JSON to XML converter.

classdeclaration

	class JSON2XML
	{
	BinData binData;
	}

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loadFromFile

	//load the JSON data from a file
	public str loadFromFile(FilenameOpen _file)
	{
	FileIOPermission _perm = new FileIOPermission(_file,"r");
	binData = new binData();
	_perm.assert();
	binData.loadFile(_file);
	return binData.getStrData();
	}

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convert2xml

	//rudimentry method for converting JSON to XML
	public str convert2xml(str _json)
	{
	#define.SPACE(32)
	//remove whitespace from JSON string
	str stripSpace(str _str)
	{
	int i;
	str tmpStr;
	boolean inquote;
	for(i=1;i<=strLen(_str);i++)
	{
	if (subStr(_str,i,1) == '"')
	{
	inquote=true;
	}else
	{
	inquote = false;
	}
	if (char2num(_str,i) <= #SPACE && !inquote)
	{
	continue;
	}
	tmpStr = tmpStr + subStr(_str,i,1);
	}
	return tmpStr;
	}
	//add header to xml
	xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
	xml = xml + "<root>";
	//convert
	this.convert("root",stripSpace(_json));
	return xml;
	}

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convert

	//recursive method to parse JSON string and construct XML.
	container convert(str _tag,str _str)
	{
	int i = strLen(_str);
	str tmpStr = _str;
	str tagStr,origTagStr;
	str convStr;
	int pos;
	int quotePos;
	int retval;
	boolean expand;
	boolean inquote;
	boolean invalue;
	pos = 1;
	while (pos<=i)
	{
	switch(subStr(tmpStr,pos,1))
	{
	//assign end tag and pop if not in quotes
	case ',':
	if (!inquote)
	{
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr,quotePos,pos- quotePos);
	invalue = false;
	}
	xml = xml + "</" + _tag + ">";
	return [pos,true];
	}
	pos +=1;
	break;
	//beginning of a tag if not in quotes, push json element, value
	case '{':
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr,quotePos,pos - quotePos);
	inValue = false;
	}
	pos +=1;
	if (!inquote)
	{
	[tagStr,origTagStr] = this.getTag(subStr(tmpStr,pos,strLen(tmpStr)-pos));
	xml = xml + "<" + tagStr + ">";
	pos += strLen(origTagStr) + 2;
	convStr = subStr(tmpStr,pos,strLen(tmpStr)-(pos-1));
	[retval,expand] = this.convert(tagStr,convStr);
	pos += retval;
	//if we are going to expand, then poke a '{' to force another nesting tag
	if (expand)
	{
	pos -=1;
	tmpStr = strPoke(tmpStr,"{",pos);
	}
	}
	break;
	//ending of the tag if not in quotes, pop json element
	case '}':
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr,quotePos,pos -quotePos);
	invalue = false;
	}
	//pos +=1;
	if (!inquote)
	{
	xml = xml + "</" + _tag + ">";
	}
	return [pos,false];
	//begin array if not in quote and push json element, value pairs
	case '[':
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr, quotePos, pos - quotePos);
	invalue = false;
	}
	pos +=1;
	if (!inquote)
	{
	tagStr = 'element';
	xml = xml + "<" + tagStr + ">";
	convStr = subStr(tmpStr,pos,strLen(tmpStr)-(pos-1));
	[retval,expand] = this.convert(tagStr,convStr);
	pos += retval;
	if (expand)
	{
	pos -=1;
	tmpStr = strPoke(tmpStr,"[",pos);
	}
	}
	break;
	//end array, and pop json element
	case ']':
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr,quotePos, pos - quotePos);
	invalue = false;
	}
	pos +=1;
	if (!inquote)
	{
	xml = xml + "</element>";
	}
	return [pos, false];
	//begin string type
	case '"':
	pos +=1;
	if (inquote)
	{
	inquote = false;
	//add value without quotation marks if they exist
	xml = xml + strReplace(subStr(tmpStr,quotePos,pos-quotePos),'"','');
	quotePos=0;
	}else
	{
	inquote = true;
	quotePos = pos-1;
	}
	break;
	//parse the value of the element,value pair
	case ':':
	pos +=1;
	if (inquote || invalue)
	{
	break;
	}
	//we might have a value other than a string, we will capture all the characters
	//and store it in the xml string as a string without quotes.
	if (subStr(tmpStr,pos,1) !='"')
	{
	quotePos = pos;
	invalue = true;
	}
	break;
	default:
	pos +=1;
	break;
	}
	}
	if (invalue)
	{
	xml = xml + subStr(tmpStr,quotePos,pos -quotePos);
	}
	xml = xml + "</" + _tag + ">";
	return [pos-1,false];
	}

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getTag

	//get tag from JSON string
	container getTag(str _tagStr)
	{
	str tmpStr = subStr(_tagStr,1,strScan(_tagStr,":",1,strLen(_tagStr))-1);
	str retStr = strReplace(tmpStr,'"','');
	//XML does not allow the first characer of the tag name to be anything other than a alphabetic character
	if (!strFind(retStr,"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ",1,1))
	{
	return ["str_" + retStr,retStr];
	}
	return [retStr,retStr];
	}

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Sample JSON exchange rate data from Fixer.io.

XML version after running it through the converter.