How do I do a command like array.shift() to an XML string?

November 28, 2021

I have an XML like this stored in a String variable in JavaScript :

<metadata>
<a>...</a>
<b>...</b>
<c>...</c>
</metadata>

<data>
<a>...</a>
<b>...</b>
<c>...</c>
</data>

Since a valid XML can only have single root tag, mine cannot be called valid as it has two root tags: metadata & data. I would like to completely remove the metadata tag, as I don’t have any use of it either.

I read about array.Shift() command, which removes the first element of an array. But since I have an XML, how do I do the same? Again, would just like to remove the <metadata> tag, so the result XML looks like this (given below).

<data>
<a>...</a>
<b>...</b>
<c>...</c>
</data>

>Solution :

Use a DOMParser

const xmlString = `
<metadata>
  <a>...</a>
  <b>...</b>
  <c>...</c>
</metadata>
<data>
  <a>...</a>
  <b>...</b>
  <c>...</c>
</data>`;

const parser = new DOMParser();
const doc1 = parser.parseFromString(`<root>${xmlString}</root>`, "application/xml");
doc1.querySelector('metadata').remove()
console.log(doc1.documentElement.innerHTML)