[snowwrestler]

I don't think XML does either by itself. The schema will determine which fields are parsed as strings and which are parsed as numbers.

[beagle3]

iff you have a schema, and a parser that actually uses it. I've seen a few DTDs but the vast majority of XML documents don't have a schema or even a DTD to follow.

And the vast majority of parsers will not parse anything for you, regardless of schema definitions.

Which effectively puts you in the same place as the JSON string.