About String to XML

Parse stringified XML back to formatted XML. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Converters collection.

Use Cases

• Parsing escaped SOAP response bodies from application logs
• Reading XML config strings stored in database columns
• Debugging serialized XML in message broker payloads
• Recovering formatted XML from CI/CD pipeline outputs

Tips

• Handles escaped angle brackets and encoded entities
• Use this to recover XML from log file string dumps
• Validate the parsed output structure after conversion

Fun Facts

• XML 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on February 10, 1998, making it over 25 years old.
• SGML, XML's parent language, was developed by Charles Goldfarb, Ed Mosher, and Ray Lorie at IBM in the 1970s.
• The XML specification requires that every document have exactly one root element, a rule inherited from SGML.

FAQ

When is XML string-encoded?

Inside JSON fields (logs, APIs), inside YAML values, or inside environment variables. Any text transport that doesn't natively support XML markup.

Does it escape or unescape?

Unescape — takes an escaped string and produces parsed XML. Pair with xml-to-string for the reverse direction.

What if the content has encoding declarations?

The BOM and `<?xml encoding="..."?>` declaration are preserved when present. The tool detects common encodings automatically.

Will it validate the result?

Well-formedness yes. For DTD/XSD validation use XML Validator after conversion.