What XML is also very good at is: representing tagged text, what is called "mixed content" in XML terminology.

Just try to write the JSON equivalent of:

    The JSON format was invented by Douglas Crockford.

If your document consists mainly in losely structured text with some annotation, you better use XML.

arethuza

{ "type": "div", "children": [ "The ", { "type": "a", "attributes": { "href": "https://www.json.org/" }, "children": [ "JSON format" ] }, " was invented by ", { "type": "a", "children": [ "Douglas Crockford" ] } ] }

I think I prefer the XML :-)

Edit: I agree that tagged text is a clear win for XML - for pretty much everything else I'd go for JSON.

Edit2: HN ate my formatting, but probably not a bad thing ;-)

m1el

["div", "The ", ["a", {"href": "https://www.json.org/"}, "JSON format"], " was invented by ", ["em", "Douglas Crockford"], "."]

sacado2

Quite readable but it's a hell to parse. The first argument is the name of the element, but what is the second one? If it is a string or an array, it's the first child, but if it's an object, it's the attribute set?

52-6F-62

Maybe something more like:

    [
        "div",
        [
            "The ",
            [
                "a",
                { "href": "https://www.json.org/" },
                [ "JSON format" ]
            ],
            " was invented by ",
            [
                "em",
                "Douglas Crockford"
            ],
            "."
        ]
    ]

With all children being encapsulated in an array...

edit: though it again gets confusing when the 0 index is sometimes the element type and sometimes the straight text... so never mind I guess the problem persists.

fnordsensei

That's is roughly how it's done in Reagent[1]/re-frame[2]:

  [:div "The" [:a {:href "https://www.json.org/"} "JSON format"]
   " was invented by " [:em "Douglas Crockford"] "."]

The fact that EDN[3] supports keywords makes it a bit easier to parse. Representing HTML in EDN this way was first done in a library called Hiccup[4], so it’s usually called “Hiccup” even when encountered outside of the original library.

1: https://holmsand.github.io/reagent/

2: https://github.com/Day8/re-frame

3: https://github.com/edn-format/edn

4: https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup