manger32 / xmlcompare

cmd line utility to compare xml files

XmlCompare

This project is a cmd line utility for comparing xml files. You can configure it to ignore certain xml elements that you do not want to be compared.

The application is built from 3 separate cmd line exe's:

1. XmlDiffXmlFileFinder.exe: This application calls web services defined in a config file and saves the results to files. Its these files that we later want to compare.
2. XmlDiffView.exe: This application compares 2 files using the ignore config file, generates the comparison diffgram file and a html file that shows the 2 files side by side with highlighted changes.
3. XmlPatch.exe: This application takes the original file and applies the diffgram file to generate the changed file.

Installation

copy the folder release_candidate to your local machine and you're done.

Setup and Configuration

There are 2 config files that need to be set up before running the application. These files are in the config library.

ea_ignore.xml

In this file you specify which xml elements you want the compare tool to ignore. For each element you want to ignore, you declare an element and the value in is an xpath value identifying the element to ignore. you also need to specify the namespaces used in the xml files you are comparing

ea_services.xml

In this file you specify which web services to contact and get the data from. You need to specify the service name, username, pwd, and full path of the output file.

important - the full paths you specify in this file should then be copied to the ea_xml_compare.bat file.

This file is read by the XmlDiffXmlFileFinder.exe

Running the Application

To run the application, open the command prompt in the release_candidate location. Run the ea_xml_compare.bat batch file. Before running the bratch file, make sure the file paths are all correct in the batch file.