Javascript XML parser doesn't work

Question

I know there are many questions and articles discussing this issue on the internet, but I somehow can't get this to work. I'm quite sure I'm missing something basic, but I can't find it.

The parsing itself:

var str="<article>Some article</article><other>Other stuff</other>";
var xmlDoc = null;
if (window.DOMParser) {
            var parser = new DOMParser();
            xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(str,"text/xml");
        } 
else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
            xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject ("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
            xmlDoc.async = false;
            xmlDoc.loadXML(str);
        }


var node = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("article")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
alert (node);

But it doesn't work, FF says that:

xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("article")[0] is undefined

Also, it works if I use str like this:

var str="<article>Some article</article>";

So the question is, why doesn't it work? Parsing doesn't work right even if I append just one character to the end of str variable. Could you also point me out to some useful tutorial regarding this behaviour?

Maybe because it's not a valid XML structure...?

gdoron
– gdoron

2012-04-29 19:02:42 +00:00
Commented Apr 29, 2012 at 19:02 — gdoron
– gdoron, Commented Apr 29, 2012 at 19:02

Bill · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-29 19:04:14Z

4

Your string isn't valid XML since it has multiple root nodes. Did you mean something like:

<article><name>Some article</name><other>Something else</other></article>

answered Apr 29, 2012 at 19:04

Bill

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Ravi Jain · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-29 19:04:22Z

1

try using

var str="<root><article>Some article</article><other>Other stuff</other></root>";


var node = xmlDoc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName("article")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;

documentElement property returns the root tag of an xml document , once you get the root tag, next you can extract elements by tag name , child nodes ....

answered Apr 29, 2012 at 19:04

Ravi Jain

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