HELP - Getting a Difference between XML documents?

[Ed]

Hi,

I have 2 sets of XML documents.

XML1 is:
<Root>
<Node1>111</Node1>
<Node2>222</Node2>
<Node3>333</Node3>
<Node4>
<Node4A>444A</Node4A>
<Node4B>444B</Node4B>
</Node4>
<Node5>555</Node5>
</Root>

XML2 is:
<Root>
<Node1>111</Node1>
<Node2>222New</Node2>
<Node3>333</Node3>
<Node4>
<Node4A>444A</Node4A>
<Node4B>444BNew</Node4B>
</Node4>
<Node5>555New</Node5>
</Root>

Essentially, what I want to do in my VB Dot Net application is to have
XML2 - XML1, where the result would be:

<Root>
<Node2>222New</Node2>
<Node4>
<Node4B>444BNew</Node4B>
</Node4>
<Node5>555New</Node5>
</Root>

Only the differring nodes remain.

Is something like this possible? Please Help.

Thanks,
ed

[Oleg Tkachenko]

Ed wrote:

Only the differring nodes remain.

Is something like this possible? Please Help.

Take a look at Microsoft XML Diff tool -
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff
--
Oleg Tkachenko
http://www.tkachenko.com/blog
Multiconn Technologies, Israel

[apm]

Oleg Tkachenko <oleg@NO_SPAM_PLEASEtkachenko.com> wrote in message news:<eh**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>...

Ed wrote:

Only the differring nodes remain.

Is something like this possible? Please Help.

Take a look at Microsoft XML Diff tool -
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff

Now if only there was a platform-independent, GPL'd version :-)

-Andrew Marlow

[Oleg Tkachenko]

apm wrote:

Now if only there was a platform-independent, GPL'd version :-)

AFAIK java versions do exist also, from IBM alphaworks to mention one.
--
Oleg Tkachenko
http://www.tkachenko.com/blog
Multiconn Technologies, Israel

[Aleksi Kallio]

>>>Only the differring nodes remain.

Is something like this possible? Please Help.

Take a look at Microsoft XML Diff tool -
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff

Now if only there was a platform-independent, GPL'd version :-)

How about X-Diff? It has C++ ja Java implementations and it's a real
difference algorithm - most normal algorithms assume that the order of
elements is significant, thus reducing the problem to finding the
difference between two strings.

But it is recommended that in XML the order of child elements would not
be significant. In that case one might think that the task reduces to
finding a difference between two trees - which is NP-Complete. However,
by taking advantage of some properties of XML documents, X-Diff runs in
polynomial time.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~yuanwang/xdiff.html

[Ed]

Thanks for all the responses.. I'm gonna give the XML Diff tool a look!

Aleksi Kallio <aleksi.kallio@_DONT_SPAM_csc.fi> wrote in message news:<bh**********@newsread2.funet.fi>...

Only the differring nodes remain.
Is something like this possible? Please Help.
Take a look at Microsoft XML Diff tool -
http://apps.gotdotnet.com/xmltools/xmldiff

Now if only there was a platform-independent, GPL'd version :-)

How about X-Diff? It has C++ ja Java implementations and it's a real
difference algorithm - most normal algorithms assume that the order of
elements is significant, thus reducing the problem to finding the
difference between two strings.

But it is recommended that in XML the order of child elements would not
be significant. In that case one might think that the task reduces to
finding a difference between two trees - which is NP-Complete. However,
by taking advantage of some properties of XML documents, X-Diff runs in
polynomial time.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~yuanwang/xdiff.html