JSONx for Laravel

Add XML support to your JSON API just by adding this one middleware. All incoming XML requests are converted to JSON. All outgoing JSON responses are converted to XML.

Requests just need to use the Accept: application/xml header to receive the response as XML. And if they're sending in XML, they just need to use the Content-Type: application/xml header too.

It does this using IBM's standard for representing JSON as XML: JSONx.

This library is just a small wrapper around danharper/jsonx. If you're not using Laravel, or want something based around standard PSR-7 messages, check out danharper/psr7-jsonx.

Installation

composer require danharper/laravel-jsonx

Register the middleware within $routeMiddleware in app/Http/Kernel:

protected $routeMiddleware => [
  // ...
  'jsonx' => \danharper\LaravelJSONx\JSONxMiddleware::class,
];

And simply add the jsonx middleware to your API routes.

Example

Once the middleware's registered, use it like so:

Route::get('foo', ['middleware' => ['jsonx'], 'uses' => function() {
  return [
    'fruits' => ['apple', 'banana', 'pear'],
    'something' => true,
  ];
});

Make a JSON request, e.g. using the Accept: application/json header and in response you'll get (as Laravel provides by default):

{
  "fruits": ["apple", "banana", "pear"],
  "something": true
}

But make an XML request using the Accept: application/xml header and you'll get back JSONx:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<json:object xmlns:json="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/2009/jsonx" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.datapower.com/schemas/json jsonx.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <json:array name="fruits">
    <json:string>apple</json:string>
    <json:string>banana</json:string>
    <json:string>pear</json:string>
  </json:array>
  <json:boolean name="something">true</json:boolean>
</json:object>

Additionally, incoming XML data (formatted as JSONx) will be seamlessly converted to JSON.

So for example, these two are equivalent (assuming they're sent with Content-Type: application/json and Content-Type: application/xml headers respectively):

{
  "address": {
    "line1": "9 Long Street",
    "city": "Portsmouth"
  }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<json:object xmlns:json="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/2009/jsonx" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.datapower.com/schemas/json jsonx.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <json:object name="address">
    <json:string name="line1">9 Long Street</json:string>
    <json:string name="city">Portsmouth</json:string>
  </json:object>
</json:object>

And with a handler:

Route::post('/', ['middleware' => ['jsonx'], 'uses' => function() {
  return [
    'hello' => request('address.city')
  ];
});

When the response is asked for as JSON (default) as Accept: application/json or XML as Accept: application/xml, the response will be:

{
  "hello": "Portsmouth"
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<json:object xmlns:json="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/2009/jsonx" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.datapower.com/schemas/json jsonx.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
	<json:string name="hello">Portsmouth</json:string>
</json:object>