CSV to XML Converter

What Is This Tool?

Some systems (legacy enterprise software, certain SOAP-based APIs, RSS-adjacent feeds) expect data as XML, while spreadsheets and most data-import tools expect CSV. This tool moves data between the two formats: CSV → XML wraps each row in a <row> element inside a root <rows> element, with each column becoming a child tag named after the header; XML → CSV does the reverse, extracting one column per distinct child tag name it finds.

The CSV side is parsed with a proper quoted-field parser (not a naive split on commas), so values containing commas, line breaks, or embedded quotes are handled correctly. The XML side is parsed using the browser's native DOMParser API — the same interface browsers use internally to parse XML documents — rather than a hand-rolled regex-based reader, so nested tags and standard XML escaping are handled the way a real XML parser handles them.

Column/tag names that aren't valid XML element names (containing spaces, starting with a digit, etc.) are automatically sanitized when generating XML, since XML element names have stricter rules than CSV headers do.

Source: CSV parsing follows RFC 4180; XML structure follows the W3C XML 1.0 specification.

Why Use It?

• Works in both directions — CSV to XML and XML to CSV, in one tool.
• Correct CSV parsing — handles quoted fields with commas, line breaks and escaped quotes, not just a naive comma split.
• Standards-based XML parsing — XML → CSV uses the browser's built-in DOMParser rather than a custom regex parser, so malformed XML is reported as an error instead of silently producing garbage.
• Automatic XML escaping — special characters like & and < in your CSV values are escaped correctly when generating XML.
• 100% client-side — nothing you paste here is uploaded to a server.

How to Use

1. Paste CSV data (with a header row) or XML data into the box.
2. Click "CSV → XML" to generate XML, or "XML → CSV" to convert XML back to a table.
3. Review the output — copy it or download it as a file.
4. For CSV → XML, each row becomes a <row> element with one tag per column, wrapped in a <rows> root.

Example

Input

name,age
Alice,30
Bob,25

Output

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rows>
  <row>
    <name>Alice</name>
    <age>30</age>
  </row>
  <row>
    <name>Bob</name>
    <age>25</age>
  </row>
</rows>

Each CSV row becomes one <row> element, and each column becomes a child tag named after the header — running this XML back through "XML → CSV" reconstructs the original two-column table.

Practical tips

• Feeding data into a legacy system or SOAP API that expects XML: convert your CSV export here first, then paste the XML output directly into the target system.
• Auditing an XML export you received: run XML → CSV to get a quick, readable table view without needing a full XML editor.
• If your XML uses deeply nested elements rather than a flat <row><column> structure, this tool won't flatten arbitrary nesting — it expects one level of row elements, each containing simple column elements.

Why DOMParser instead of a hand-written XML reader

XML has real structural rules — nested elements, attribute quoting, character escaping for &, <, >, and so on — that a quick regex-based parser tends to get subtly wrong on anything but the simplest input. Using the browser's built-in DOMParser API means this tool relies on the same standards-compliant XML engine the browser itself uses to render XML documents, rather than reimplementing XML parsing from scratch. It also means malformed XML — an unclosed tag, a stray angle bracket — surfaces as a clear parse error instead of quietly producing a corrupted or incomplete CSV.

Frequently Asked Questions