XML Plug-in

[Guest]

Does anyone know of a true XML plugin ?

[Chris]

Re: XML Plug-in

You might find our HTML Tidy and XML Tidy add on helpful for comparing XML files. It will standardize the formatting of XML files before opening them for comparison.

You can download the add on from: http://www.scootersoftware.com/suppo..._morerules.php

[dr_barnowl]

Re: XML Plug-in

A "true" XML plugin would be one that is schema-aware ; able to distinguish between sequence / group, compare elements on ID (or sort by other comparators), and is a different kettle of fish to BC which concentrates on being a good line-based tool.

The XML tidy stuff goes some way there, especially with the attribute sorting enabled (the attribute sorting feature of tidy was written specifically for this purpose), but it's not a complete XML comparison solution. There is room to improve the preprocessing rules, but in the end, BC will always be comparing 2 text files ; unless you write a custom XML comparator with it's own UI, which would almost be an additional full application (although the directory comparisons would productively use it's output).

Altova DiffDog takes things a bit further, and has additional settings ; it can ignore namespace prefixes, and child element order. It can also present the comparison in the excellent Altova XML grid control. Some of the things DiffDog can do can be done with intelligent use of settings on tidy, some cannot. For my own use, once tidy could sort attributes, I found the text-based compare in BC sufficient. I can see how some may find child element ordering useful. You have to ask yourself if it's worth the extra $69 a seat that DiffDog costs ; you may well be able to add to the XML compare rules with a step that runs your documents through an XSLT sheet that sorts your elements appropriately.

I myself would like to see a much better XML-Tidy, particularly because I am involved with a number of tools that consume and save XML documents that are the same schema, but all these apps output the XML with different formatting and order. It plays merry hell with source control systems, creating patches and deltas that are much larger than necessary, makes text-based comparison tools virtually useless (when using raw input) and makes merge awkward (because you can't just merge a change and have a small patch - if you used a prettifier, the patch will be the whole file).

[Mr ChriZ]

I'd just like to add my request for the ability to compare XML whilst ignoring child node order.

[Tim.Vargo]

Add me to this list! I have spend many hours trying to use the XML Tidy (especially with attribute sorting), and then got another experienced BC user co-worker who is way more versed in XSLT to help me; but even together we never could produce the results we needed. I agree that being schema-aware might be the key. What I need is an ability to merge two XML files, considering child node/attribute ordering irrelevant. Often I will be doing this from a Source-Code-Control environment, so an ancestor file would even be available for a 3-way merge. Yes, a completely different UI might be optimal while comparing/merging XML, but the existing UI could be used provided that the pre-processing and the new processing rules were correct. I have already paid for a BC4 Pro license (6 of them actually), but I would probably pay even more for a good XML plugin or module.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. Offering a more comprehensive XML comparison is on our wishlist, and I'll add these notes to our entry on the subject.

[Aaron]

Also, do you have any example files you would like to send us, and/or your customized XSLT? You can do so at [email protected] with a link back to this forum thread for our reference.