When converting XML to JSON, you can safely drop all id attributes

Hi Folks,

Common practice in XML design is to liberally sprinkle id attributes throughout the XML. Why? Because it facilitates intra-document linking (via the id-idref mechanism) and inter-document linking.

The following example shows the use of an id attribute to facilitate an intra-document reference:

JSON does not have attributes. The JSON Reference specification [1] defines a syntax for intra-document and inter-document references and it does not use anything like an id attribute. The above intra-document reference is expressed like this:

{ "$ref": "#/Library/BookCatalogue/Book" }

Lesson Learned: when converting XML to JSON you can safely drop all id attributes.

/Roger

[1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pbryan-zyp-json-ref-03