From 228ca6d0814ed8fac523df332180d63940aee37d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Buck Evan <workitharder@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:11:13 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] --json: self-closing tags have null content
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Empty XML elements (self-closing tags, immediate-closing tags, and
whitespace-only elements) now output as null in JSON instead of empty
objects {}.

This makes the JSON formatter consistent with the XML formatter, which
already treats these elements as semantically empty by collapsing them
to self-closing tags.

Changes:
- nodeToJSONInternal() returns nil for empty elements
- Added TestSelfClosingTagsHaveNullContent test
- Added TestWhitespaceOnlyTagsAreSelfClosing test

Example:
  <tag/> → {"tag": null} (was {"tag": {}})
  <tag>  </tag> → {"tag": null} (was {"tag": {}})

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 internal/utils/jsonutil.go      |  4 ++++
 internal/utils/jsonutil_test.go | 42 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 46 insertions(+)

diff --git a/internal/utils/jsonutil.go b/internal/utils/jsonutil.go
index 50b16ca..dc2cfb8 100644
--- a/internal/utils/jsonutil.go
+++ b/internal/utils/jsonutil.go
@@ -84,9 +84,13 @@ func nodeToJSONInternal(node *xmlquery.Node, depth int) interface{} {
 
 	if len(textParts) > 0 {
 		if len(result) == 0 {
+			// Element contains only text
 			return strings.Join(textParts, "\n")
 		}
 		result["#text"] = strings.Join(textParts, "\n")
+	} else if len(result) == 0 {
+		// Self-closing tags have null content
+		return nil
 	}
 
 	return result
diff --git a/internal/utils/jsonutil_test.go b/internal/utils/jsonutil_test.go
index 22591a4..71551a1 100644
--- a/internal/utils/jsonutil_test.go
+++ b/internal/utils/jsonutil_test.go
@@ -45,3 +45,45 @@ func TestXmlToJSON(t *testing.T) {
 		assert.Equal(t, expectedJson, output.String())
 	}
 }
+
+func TestSelfClosingTagsHaveNullContent(t *testing.T) {
+	// Self-closing XML elements should have null content in JSON
+	xmlInput := `<root><self-closing/></root>`
+
+	node, err := xmlquery.Parse(strings.NewReader(xmlInput))
+	assert.NoError(t, err)
+
+	result := NodeToJSON(node, -1)
+	assert.NotNil(t, result)
+
+	resultMap, ok := result.(map[string]interface{})
+	assert.True(t, ok)
+
+	rootMap, ok := resultMap["root"].(map[string]interface{})
+	assert.True(t, ok)
+
+	assert.Nil(t, rootMap["self-closing"], "Self-closing tag should have null content")
+}
+
+func TestWhitespaceOnlyTagsAreSelfClosing(t *testing.T) {
+	// Establishes that the XML formatter treats whitespace-only elements as self-closing
+	xmlInput := `<root><spaces>  </spaces><newlines>
+</newlines><empty></empty><immediate-closing></immediate-closing></root>`
+
+	node, err := xmlquery.Parse(strings.NewReader(xmlInput))
+	assert.NoError(t, err)
+
+	result := NodeToJSON(node, -1)
+	assert.NotNil(t, result)
+
+	resultMap, ok := result.(map[string]interface{})
+	assert.True(t, ok)
+
+	rootMap, ok := resultMap["root"].(map[string]interface{})
+	assert.True(t, ok)
+
+	assert.Nil(t, rootMap["spaces"], "Spaces should have null content")
+	assert.Nil(t, rootMap["newlines"], "Newlines should have null content")
+	assert.Nil(t, rootMap["empty"], "Empty should have null content")
+	assert.Nil(t, rootMap["immediate-closing"], "Immediate-closing should have null content")
+}