XML v/s JSON

Both JSON and XML can be used to receive data from a web server.

JSON is used to store information in an organized, and easy-to-access manner. Its full form is JavaScript Object Notation. It offers a human-readable collection of data which can be accessed logically.

XML is a markup language which is designed to store data. It's popularly used or transfer of data. It is case sensitive. XML offers you to define markup elements and generate customized markup language. The basic unit in the XML is known as an element. Extension of XML file is .xml

KEY DIFFERENCE

JSON object has a type whereas XML data is typeless.
JSON does not provide namespace support while XML provides namespaces support.
JSON has no display capabilities whereas XML offers the capability to display data.
JSON is less secured whereas XML is more secure compared to JSON.
JSON supports only UTF-8 encoding whereas XML supports various encoding formats.

JSON Code vs XML Code

Let's see a sample JSON Code

{
  "student": [ 
	
     { 
        "id":"01", 
        "name": "Tom", 
        "lastname": "Price" 
     }, 
	
     { 
        "id":"02", 
        "name": "Nick", 
        "lastname": "Thameson" 
     } 
  ]   
}

Let's study the same code in XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<root>
	<student>
		<id>01</id>
		<name>Tom</name>
		<lastname>Price</lastname>
	</student>
	<student>
		<id>02</id>
		<name>Nick</name>
		<lastname>Thameson</lastname>
	</student>
</root>

History of JSON

Here are important landmarks that form the history of JSON:

Douglas Crockford specified the JSON format in the early 2000s.
The official website was launched in 2002.
In December 2005, Yahoo! starts offering some of its web services in JSON.
JSON became an ECMA international standard in 2013.
The most updated JSON format standard was published in 2017.

History of XML

Here, are the important landmark from the history of XML:

XML was also derived from SGML.
Version 1.0 of XML was released in February 1998.
Jan 2001:IETF Proposed Standard: XML Media Types
XML is the Extensible Markup Language.
1970: Charles Goldfarb, Ed Mosher, and Ray Lorie invented GML
The development of XML started in the year 1996 at Sun Microsystem

Features of JSON

‭‬Easy to use - JSON API offers high-level facade, which helps you to simplify commonly used use-cases.‬ ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
Performance - JSON is quite fast as it consumes very less memory space, which is especially suitable for large object graphs or systems.
Free tool - JSON library is open source and free to use.
Doesn't require to create mapping - Jackson API provides default mapping for many objects to be serialized.
Clean JSON - Creates clean, and compatible JSON result that is easy to read.
Dependency - JSON library does not require any other library for processing.

Features of XML

XML tags are not predefined. You need to define your customized tags.
XML was designed to carry data, not allows you to display that data.
Mark-up code of XML is easy to understand for a human.
Well, the structured format is easy to read and write from programs.
XML is an extensible markup language like HTML.

Difference between JSON and XML

JSON	XML
JSON object has a type	XML data is typeless
JSON types: string, number, array, Boolean	All XML data should be string
Data is readily accessible as JSON objects	XML data needs to be parsed.
JSON is supported by most browsers.	Cross-browser XML parsing can be tricky
JSON has no display capabilities.	XML offers the capability to display data because it is a markup language.
JSON supports only text and number data type.	XML support various data types such as number, text, images, charts, graphs, etc. It also provides options for transferring the structure or format of the data with actual data.
Retrieving value is easy	Retrieving value is difficult
Supported by many Ajax toolkit	Not fully supported by Ajax toolkit
A fully automated way of deserializing/serializing JavaScript.	Developers have to write JavaScript code to serialize/de-serialize from XML
Native support for object.	The object has to be express by conventions - mostly missed use of attributes and elements.
It supports only UTF-8 encoding.	It supports various encoding.
It doesn't support comments.	It supports comments.
JSON files are easy to read as compared to XML.	XML documents are relatively more difficult to read and interpret.
It does not provide any support for namespaces.	It supports namespaces.
It is less secured.	It is more secure than JSON.

JSON is Like XML Because

Both JSON and XML are "self describing" (human readable)
Both JSON and XML are hierarchical (values within values)
Both JSON and XML can be parsed and used by lots of programming languages
Both JSON and XML can be fetched with an XMLHttpRequest

JSON is Unlike XML Because

JSON doesn't use end tag
JSON is shorter
JSON is quicker to read and write
JSON can use arrays

The biggest difference is:

XML has to be parsed with an XML parser. JSON can be parsed by a standard JavaScript function.

Why JSON is Better Than XML

XML is much more difficult to parse than JSON.
JSON is parsed into a ready-to-use JavaScript object.

For AJAX applications, JSON is faster and easier than XML:

Using XML

Fetch an XML document
Use the XML DOM to loop through the document
Extract values and store in variables

Using JSON

Fetch a JSON string
JSON.Parse the JSON string

Web References:

https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_xml.asp
https://www.guru99.com/json-vs-xml-difference.html

Video References:

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