I'm using the following library

To convert XML to JSON. After conversion console.log produces the following

{ '@':
   { RaceDayDate: '2012-03-15T00:00:00',
     Year: '2012',
     Month: '3',
     Day: '15',
     DayOfTheWeek: 'Thursday',
     MonthLong: 'March',
     IsCurrentDay: '1',
     IsPresaleMeeting: '0',
     ServerTime: '2012-03-15T19:48:47.840' },
  PresaleRaceDate: [ { '@': [Object] }, { '@': [Object] }, { '@': [Object] } ],
  Meeting:
   [ { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },
     { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },
     { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },

What does @ mean and assuming the data is stored in a variable named 'result' what is the syntax for accessing RaceDayDate, Year, Month etc? result.@ does not work

I'm using the following library

https://github.com/Leonidas-from-XIV/node-xml2js

To convert XML to JSON. After conversion console.log produces the following

{ '@':
   { RaceDayDate: '2012-03-15T00:00:00',
     Year: '2012',
     Month: '3',
     Day: '15',
     DayOfTheWeek: 'Thursday',
     MonthLong: 'March',
     IsCurrentDay: '1',
     IsPresaleMeeting: '0',
     ServerTime: '2012-03-15T19:48:47.840' },
  PresaleRaceDate: [ { '@': [Object] }, { '@': [Object] }, { '@': [Object] } ],
  Meeting:
   [ { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },
     { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },
     { '@': [Object], Pool: [Object], Race: [Object] },

What does @ mean and assuming the data is stored in a variable named 'result' what is the syntax for accessing RaceDayDate, Year, Month etc? result.@ does not work

• javascript
• xml
• json

5 Answers 5

'@' is just a string like any other. In JavaScript, you can access it with

result['@']

Also note that the input is not valid JSON, as it is missing quotes around many dictionary keys and Object, uses single instead of double quotes and ends with a comma.

As "Clarkeye" mentioned above I have one with “@” prefix for some tags (sample data given below). Those are attribute in the xml version of that message. I suspect conversion tool adding this prefix. json sample data

{
  "@context": "\/v1\/contexts\/Book",
  "@type": "Recipe",
  "id": "12136",
  "note": [
    {
      "@id": "\/v1\/terms\/331",
      "@type": "SQL",
      "id": 331,
      "display": "SQL",
      "taxonomy": "post_tag"
    }
  ]

try result['@'].RaceDayDate.

I'm not sure if this is relevant to this example, but I'm currently integrating with an API that allows you to pass either xml or json; in the json messages, any field that is stored as an attribute in the xml version of that message is prefixed with the '@' character - I assume that this is because the json is converted to xml for processing and whatever tool they are using for this uses @ to differentiate between elements and attributes.

It has no special meaning to JSON.

This particular data uses it as a key string. You'd have to know the meaning of the data to find out why.