jQuery - Create an XML Document/Object

Starting with the basics, we are going to create an XML Document/Object with JavaScript. Now as most developers should know, Internet Explorer behaves quite differently to all other web browsers, and for this, it will be no exception.

In short, Internet Explorer makes use of ActiveX to create XML, while other browsers have something called DOMParser. Now as it’s not the same on every browser, we are best to create a function to create our object, and handle all the browser issues.

jQuery.strToXML = function(s) {
  var xmlDoc;
  if (window.ActiveXObject) {
    xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
    xmlDoc.async = "false";
    xmlDoc.loadXML(s);
  } else {
    xmlDoc = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString(s, "text/xml");
  }
}

Usage:

var xmlDoc = $.strToXML("");

Due to the nature of how you create the object, you can as you may have noticed also convert a regular string into an XML document (given that it is correctly structured obviously). You now have an XML Document/Object, now you can fill it up with a structure and some data.