Question

I’m creating a Windows 8 JavaScript app, and I need to convert a string somewhat like this:

<p>
  blah blah blah
</p>
<div>
  <p>
    random dom stuff
  </p>
</div>

Into an XML DOM object, so I can traverse it with DOM methods (ie getElementByID()).

I’ve tried two ways

 //retrieve text to process
 var content = xml.querySelector("api > parse > text").textContent;

 //1
 var contentXML = new DOMParser().parseFromString(content, "text/xml");

 //2
 var newContentXML = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
 newContentXM.async = false;
 newContentXM.loadXML(content);

Both fail. #1 with Only one root element is allowed., and #2 with Automation server can't create object. Can't load the ActiveX plug-in that has the class ID '{2933BF90-7B36-11D2-B20E-00C04F983E60}'. Applications can't load ActiveX controls.

Everywhere I’ve looked says #2 is how you should do it in IE, and I’m presuming W8 JS apps use the same JavaScript engine as IE.

How can I convert my text to an XML DOM object?

Answer 1

DOMParser is fine, and the error is accurate. parseFromString returns an instance of a document, but your text doesn’t define a single document root, it’s a concatenation of two: a paragraph and a div.

The following will work:

<div>
  <p>
    blah blah blah
  </p>
  <div>
    <p>
      random dom stuff
    </p>
  </div>
</div>

By the way with your original string,

• Chrome’s DOMParser implementation will also throw an error “Extra content at the end of the document”
• Firefox yields “XML Parsing Error: junk after document element.”