README.md

Less Harmful XML

This little library permits you to convert a list on JavaScript objects to some of the alternatives that cat-v.

Usage example

You can make it so that on your REST API if you make an HTTP GET to api.example.com/products.json you receive this JSON:

[
	{ "name": "apple", "color": "red" },
	{ "name": "apple", "color": "green" },
	{ "name": "banana", "color": "yellow" }
]

But when the request is to api.example.com/products.csv you receive the CSV:

name,color
apple,red
apple,green
banana,yellow

That on a spreadsheet will look something like this:

name	color
apple	red
apple	green
banana	yellow

Concerns

The way I found better to transform an array to a string is by JSON.stringifying it. This make so that when I parse a "less harmful XML" back to an array of JavaScript objects the original values may don't be equal to the parsed results.

When an object as a number or a symbol as property name they will be converted to a string when stringifying. Because of this when parsing all the property names will be strings. And if you had a symbol with a descriptor equal to one of his properties, one of them won't become part of the object.

I found a workaround to objects inside objects so it shouldn't be a problem.