CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#xmlcompare
Patryk
Patryk

Reputation: 24140

How to compare XML files in C#?

I know that there has been a lot of questions like this but I couldn't find a reply that would satisfy my needs. I have to write an application that will compare XML files: there will be 2 types of compare, first for 2 files, listing all the differences and second one for multiple XML files listing all the variations from averages.

I am looking for some kind of class, library or API that will help me finish this task. Can you suggest some solutions ?

And yet, I do not know if I should use DOM or Xpath. Any suggestions ?

EDIT:

Ok so I have been trying to accomplish this task with XmlDiff tool but this is quite problematic to solve this for multiple Xml files - I have no idea how can I use this XmlDiffDiagram to sort out the differences among for instance 50 Xml files.

Is it going to be better with LINQ ?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 32630

Answers (3)

James Johnson
James Johnson

Reputation: 46067

Microsoft's XML Diff and Patch API should work nicely:

public void GenerateDiffGram(string originalFile, string finalFile,
                       XmlWriter diffGramWriter)
    {
        XmlDiff xmldiff = new XmlDiff(XmlDiffOptions.IgnoreChildOrder |
                                      XmlDiffOptions.IgnoreNamespaces |
                                      XmlDiffOptions.IgnorePrefixes);
        bool bIdentical = xmldiff.Compare(originalFile, finalFile, false, diffGramWriter);
        diffGramWriter.Close();
    }

If you need to, you can also use the Patch tool to compare the files and merge them:

public void PatchUp(string originalFile, string diffGramFile, string outputFile)
    {
        XmlDocument sourceDoc = new XmlDocument(new NameTable());
        sourceDoc.Load(originalFile);

        using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(diffGramFile))
        {
            XmlPatch xmlPatch = new XmlPatch();
            xmlPatch.Patch(sourceDoc, reader);

            using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(outputFile))
            {
                sourceDoc.Save(writer);
                writer.Close();
            }
            reader.Close();
        }
    }

Upvotes: 22

roman
roman

Reputation: 117550

If you want just to compare XML's and you don't need to get what is difference, you can use XNode.DeepEquals Method:

var xmlTree1 = new XElement("Root",
    new XAttribute("Att1", 1),
    new XAttribute("Att2", 2),
    new XElement("Child1", 1),
    new XElement("Child2", "some content")
);
var xmlTree2 = new XElement("Root",
    new XAttribute("Att1", 1),
    new XAttribute("Att2", 2),
    new XElement("Child1", 1),
    new XElement("Child2", "some content")
);
Console.WriteLine(XNode.DeepEquals(xmlTree1, xmlTree2));

Upvotes: 7

Maess
Maess

Reputation: 4166

Personally, I would go with LINQ to XML. You can find a good tutorial at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387061.aspx

Upvotes: 4

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