Question

I have a variable string that contains well-formed and valid XML. I need to use JavaScript code to parse this feed.

How can I accomplish this using (browser-compatible) JavaScript code?

Answer 1

Update: For a more correct answer see Tim Down’s answer.

Internet Explorer and, for example, Mozilla-based browsers expose different objects for XML parsing, so it’s wise to use a JavaScript framework like jQuery to handle the cross-browsers differences.

A really basic example is:

var xml = "<music><album>Beethoven</album></music>";  var result = $(xml).find("album").text(); 

Note: As pointed out in comments; jQuery does not really do any XML parsing whatsoever, it relies on the DOM innerHTML method and will parse it like it would any HTML so be careful when using HTML element names in your XML. But I think it works fairly good for simple XML ‘parsing’, but it’s probably not suggested for intensive or ‘dynamic’ XML parsing where you do not upfront what XML will come down and this tests if everything parses as expected.