Unexpected token < when parsing XML in NodeJS

Question

I've tried to use xml-js and xml2js but both are returning the same error.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token <
    at createScript (vm.js:80:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:139:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:616:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:596:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:11:18)

The xml example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<note>
  <to>Tove</to>
  <from>Jani</from>
  <heading>Reminder</heading>
  <body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>

The code example:

var notes =require('./test.xml')

var convert = require('xml-js');
var xml =notes;

var result1 = convert.xml2json(xml, {compact: true, spaces: 4});
var result2 = convert.xml2json(xml, {compact: false, spaces: 4});

console.log(result1, '\n', result2);

Can you help with the solution to this? I've tried using JSON.parse, JSON.stringify but it is not working anyways.

I'm trying to parse an XML to convert to JSON, by the way.

Mureinik · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-30 16:27:31Z

5

The issue isn't with the XML parsing, it's with the fact you're using require, which loads Node.js module for reading another file. Instead, you should use a simple file reading method, such as fs.readSync:

fs = require('fs');
var notes = fs.readFileSync('./test.xml')

answered Mar 30, 2019 at 16:27

Mureinik

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11 Comments

kjhughes Over a year ago

@spaceman: Recheck your work: readFileSync() would not yield the same error.

Mureinik Over a year ago

@spaceman please post the full code and the error you're getting. Your snippet has a mistake later on where you use mNotes instead of notes, but other than that, it works on my machine.

spaceman Over a year ago

@Mureinik the error and the code is in the question, didn't change. Ive corrected this mistake you've noticed minute after posting it.

kjhughes Over a year ago

@spaceman: It's not about the ||. It's about you failing to extract a true minimal reproducible example. Until you do that, we can't help you without guessing about the rest of your context, and that's extremely inefficient.

kjhughes Over a year ago

@spaceman: The three lines of code alone you posted with readFileSync() simply do not yield the error you posted. You're wasting everyone's time by not posting a complete MCVE. Until you narrow the problem properly, you'll have a hard time figuring out your problem or getting help from others. Moving on. Good luck.

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