command line tool for comparing XML files

[Corno (2)]

Hi all,

Does anybody know a command line tool (linux or windows) that can compare 2 XML files. There's only 1 extra requirement that makes it a bit more complicated: the order of attributes or elements within an element is of no importance, and so the tool should still report that 2 XML files are equal even though the order is different.

Corno

 

[Dimitre Novatchev MVP XML]

xmldiff

at:
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff/default.aspx

Cheers,

Dimitre Novatchev [XML MVP],
FXSL developer, XML Insider,

http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
Resume: http://fxsl.sf.net/DNovatchev/Resume/Res.html

 

[Corno (2)]

xmldiff

at:
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff/default.aspx

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it out, it had the feature I requested. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to give a return value if the files are different. I need that to automate a build process. Do you know any other tool that does this?

TIA,

Corno

 

[Dimitre Novatchev MVP XML]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it out, it had the feature I requested. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to give a return value if the files are different. I need that to automate a build process. Do you know any other tool that does this?

You can very easily modify the source code of the XMLDiff console application (in the Samples folder) so that Class1.Main returns an int and you will write the necessary "return" statements as you wish.

This sample app now outputs the strings:

"Files are identical."

and

"Files are different."

Cheers,

Dimitre Novatchev [XML MVP],
FXSL developer, XML Insider,

http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
Resume: http://fxsl.sf.net/DNovatchev/Resume/Res.html

 

[Mikhail Grouchinsky]

Hi all,

Does anybody know a command line tool (linux or windows) that can compare 2 XML files. There's only 1 extra requirement that makes it a bit more complicated: the order of attributes or elements within an element is of no importance, and so the tool should still report that 2 XML files are equal even though the order is different.

Corno

Is the generic problem of comparing two unordered labeled trees NP-complete? I think it had been proven to be NP-complete.

 

[Richard Tobin]

Does anybody know a command line tool (linux or windows) that can compare 2 XML files. There's only 1 extra requirement that makes it a bit more complicated: the order of attributes or elements within an element is of no importance, and so the tool should still report that 2 XML files are equal even though the order is different.

[/QUOTE]

Is the generic problem of comparing two unordered labeled trees NP-complete? I think it had been proven to be NP-complete.

Sorting attributes into Unicode order is not NP-complete

-- Richard

 

[Corno (2)]

"Corno" wrote:

Is the generic problem of comparing two unordered labeled trees NP-complete? I think it had been proven to be NP-complete.

It would seem to me that it's not; you could first write them in (a) canonical form and then compare them.

Corno

 

[Mikhail Grouchinsky]

It would seem to me that it's not; you could first write them in (a) canonical form and then compare them.

Corno

You said order of ELEMENTS doesn't matter too.

EX:

<a>
<c/>
<b>
<c/>
</b>
<b>
<d/>
</b>
</a>

and

<a>
<b>
<d/>
</b>
<c/>
<b>
<c/>
</b>
</a>

are equal (per your first e-mail)

So simple canonicalization is not going to help you as it doesn't change the order of elements.

In other hand to compare two elements which have children but have same name and same set of attributes you will run into same tree comparison problem (you have to compare two subtrees of these elements).

Anyway I should have been more clear in my first post

It has been proven that computing the edit distance for unordered labeled trees is NP-complete.

Zhang, R. Statman, D. Shasha, "On the editing distance between unordered labeled trees",

It seems you are interested only in matching two unordered labeled trees. (Which is actually making sure that editing distance is zero).

This task could be easier, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[Joe (archive)]

Hi, there is a command line tool MDCXML, at http://www.a7soft.com Joe Andersen.