Functions to transform xml to JSON-able dicts

_0_xml_to_json.md

Lxml's current FAQ includes a method of transforming xml to a dict of dicts, but not JSON. The mismatch between a dict of dicts and JSON occurs when an element has mulitple children with the same tag name. Under JSON conventions, multiple children of the same name are equivalent to an array or tuple. The below python functions attempt to add the repeated tags to list functionality. I'd appreciate suggestions for improvements.

_1_xml_to_json.py

def recursive_dict(element):
    "Given an lxml.etree._Element, recursively transform its children to dicts structured as JSON"
    if not len(element):
        return element.text
    else:
        results = {}
        for child in element:
            if results.get(child.tag, False):
                if type(results[child.tag]) != list:
                    results[child.tag] = [results[child.tag]]
                results[child.tag].append(recursive_dict(child))
            else:
                results[child.tag] = recursive_dict(child)
        return results

_2_xml_to_json.py

def tojson(element):
    unique_child_tags = set([child.tag for child in element])
    results = {}
    if not unique_child_tags:
        return element.text
    for tag in unique_child_tags:
        children_with_tag = element.xpath(tag)
        if len(children_with_tag) == 1:
            results[tag] = tojson_2(children_with_tag[0])
        else:
            results[tag] = [tojson_2(child) for child in children_with_tag]
    return results

    if results.get(child.tag, False):
         if type(results[child.tag]) != list:

For safety, I'd always spell that like this:

    if child.tag in results:
         if type(results[child.tag]) is not list:

I would expect the second approach to be much slower than the first, but generally speaking, I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all conversion. If the XML format is not intended to be JSON conforming by design, users would probably end up applying one format quirk fix or the other at some point. Giving them an example is already the best we can do.