xml2js in Angular 6: Can't resolve 'stream' and 'timers'

Question

I would like to parse xml data, retrieved from the server. Unfortunately HttpClient does not support xml, only json, therefore I installed the package xml2js:

npm install xml2js --save
npm install @types/xml2js --save-dev

Then I try to use it like this:

import {Parser} from 'xml2js';

Parser.parseString(xml_str, function (err, result) {
    console.dir(result);
});

I get these two errors if I run it:

WARNING in ./node_modules/xml2js/node_modules/sax/lib/sax.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'stream' in 'C:\projects\app\node_modules\xml2js\node_modules\sax\lib'

ERROR in ./node_modules/xml2js/lib/parser.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'timers' in 'C:\projects\app\node_modules\xml2js\lib'

I haven't found any solutions to this problem, maybe it is an Angular6 issue only. Is there any way, to parse xml in Angular6?

Answer 1

You’ll have to install those dependencies. It’s unfortunately not well documented.

npm install --save stream timers

Answer 2

For Angular to recognise xml2js, the following steps are required:

1. Add the timers-browserify node module using "npm install timers-browserify"
2. Add the stream-browserify node module using "npm install stream-browserify"
3. Add the following path mapping in your tsconfig.json:

    "compilerOptions": {
      "paths": {
        "timers": [
          "node_modules/timers-browserify"
        ],
        "stream": [
          "node_modules/stream-browserify"
        ],
      }
    }