A
Andreas Kasparek
Hola!
I'm preparing my master thesis about a XML Merge Tool implementation and was
wondering if there is any open standard for XML diff regarding topics like:
- is a diff result computed on the ordered or unordered xml node tree of
the compared documents?
- what identifiers/criteria should be used by default to match elements of
the same type in different documents?
- should a diff tool consider move operations or only insert/delete
(besides update)?
- is there any common default behavior that a user would expect from a xml
diff/merge tool?
I've searched the web (especially the W3C site) and newsgroups but couldn't
find anything useful (or I was too blind). I was told this topic is a common
one in this newsgroup but I didn't find anything reasonable here either.
There are a lot of diff programs and papers on the web but none of them seem
to reference or follow any standard. It's not a question that most tools
have to be configured properly by the user to fit the special structure and
semantic of one's specific xml files, so that it will yield optimal results.
But is there a standard behavior (say like in sorting a list in alphabetical
order) that one might expect? There are a lot of xml files out there and so
there have to be users of xml diff/merge tools who surely expect some
specific behavior from these tools, or aren't they? So has anyone taken the
time to write a draft or something about how to handle xml diffs/merges in a
default way?
I don't want help how to implement such a tool or what algorithms there are
but I'm looking for some recommendations on how such a tool should behave in
a default setting without regarding any user preferences.
Any pointers to some (official?) documents/websites/books/groups/conferences
would be nice. Thanks!
Hasta lügo
Andreas
P.S.: Excuse my unqualified use of OE as Newsreader, but I'm constrained to
it here. Oh, and this posting is merely a private affair, nothing which
represents the owner of my sender domain in any kind
I'm preparing my master thesis about a XML Merge Tool implementation and was
wondering if there is any open standard for XML diff regarding topics like:
- is a diff result computed on the ordered or unordered xml node tree of
the compared documents?
- what identifiers/criteria should be used by default to match elements of
the same type in different documents?
- should a diff tool consider move operations or only insert/delete
(besides update)?
- is there any common default behavior that a user would expect from a xml
diff/merge tool?
I've searched the web (especially the W3C site) and newsgroups but couldn't
find anything useful (or I was too blind). I was told this topic is a common
one in this newsgroup but I didn't find anything reasonable here either.
There are a lot of diff programs and papers on the web but none of them seem
to reference or follow any standard. It's not a question that most tools
have to be configured properly by the user to fit the special structure and
semantic of one's specific xml files, so that it will yield optimal results.
But is there a standard behavior (say like in sorting a list in alphabetical
order) that one might expect? There are a lot of xml files out there and so
there have to be users of xml diff/merge tools who surely expect some
specific behavior from these tools, or aren't they? So has anyone taken the
time to write a draft or something about how to handle xml diffs/merges in a
default way?
I don't want help how to implement such a tool or what algorithms there are
but I'm looking for some recommendations on how such a tool should behave in
a default setting without regarding any user preferences.
Any pointers to some (official?) documents/websites/books/groups/conferences
would be nice. Thanks!
Hasta lügo
Andreas
P.S.: Excuse my unqualified use of OE as Newsreader, but I'm constrained to
it here. Oh, and this posting is merely a private affair, nothing which
represents the owner of my sender domain in any kind