Re: XML differencing anyone?

Christopher,

It was weird synchronicity seeing this topic come up. I had 
just started looking at XML diff software and found the usual
suspects: the IBM one (xmldiff), the SourceForge one (diffxml),
a Python module (xmldiff) and the Microsoft one (xmldiffpatch).

My interest is in exposing changes in web services by providing
a diff of the WSDL.

I haven't gotten very far down the road. what I've learned:

- naive diff is no good because hierarchical data can take many
   equivalent forms
- There is no standard diff format, so those who implement
   it also usually write their own patch.
- There are visual diffs, but I haven't gotten any of them
   to work.
- The diff applications differ in complexity; the most complex
   will compare node names to attributes, etc., in trying
   to make a match. And to make this work, the app generally
   builds a DOM ... which limits the size of the documents
   it can compare.

I don't know if that's helpful or not ...

Here are links to the xml diffs I found:

IBM: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xmldiffmerge
SourceForge: http://diffxml.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
Python: http://www.logilab.org/projects/xmldiff/
Microsoft: http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff/

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Ken Kress
Information Technology
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Email: [email protected]




Christopher R Newman <[email protected]>
04/04/2005 02:46 PM
Please respond to general

 
        To:     [email protected]
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: XML differencing anyone?


So noone has tried XML differencing, huh?

Christopher R Newman wrote:
I would probably prefer Perl since I actually know it.  But I was 
wondering if anyone had any suggestions on specific programs/modules to 
use for XML differencing.    Does anybody have experience with this?

Chris

jinwen lu wrote:
Use Perl?
I think Perl could be a good choice speed wise.

jinwen
--- Christopher R Newman
<[email protected]> wrote:
 
Curious if anyone has any experience with XML differencing, especially 
on an Apache server.  I've been looking at the Perl modules like 
XML::SemanticDiff, XML::Diff, and XML::DifferenceMarkup, but they all 
seem to have some slight limitations.  I just realized it might be 
might be possible for me to set up a Java servlet to run some of the 
Java-based XML differencing programs, but from what I've read so far 
many of them seem to be even worse off (slower, eat more memory, etc.).
What would you all suggest I use and why?  Any help would be greatly 
appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Chris

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Chris Newman       Alcatel USA          Work:(919)850-5586
Software Engineer  2301 Sugar Bush Rd.  Fax:(919)850-6160
Test Automation    Raleigh, NC 27601    [email protected]
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