Parsing XML as JSON

This morning, I got an instant message from a programmer who’s getting deeply into their Ajax recently. The conversation went something like this (I paraphrase and dramatise at least a little):

Morning! I need to manipulate a JSON feed so that [this JSON parser] will recognise it.

Here’s what I get out of the JSON feed right now:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<module-slots type="array">
  <module-slot>
    <title>Module3</title>
    ...

“Umm…” I began, not quite sure how to break this news, “That’s XML, not JSON.”

“Is that a problem?” comes the reply.