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With its powerful XML-aware differencing capabilities, DiffDog® 2008 is an invaluable – yet highly affordable – tool for today’s XML developers.

In addition to its file comparison and directory comparison capabilities, DiffDog® 2008 includes powerful functionality for comparing, merging, and editing XML files in an intelligent, XML-aware manner.

The XML-related capabilities and features of DiffDog® 2008 draw on Altova’s legacy as creator of XMLSpy, the world’s leading XML development environment and the trusted choice of over 3 million users worldwide. With robust features such as well-formedness and validation checking, code completion, entry helpers, and more, DiffDog® 2008 is a must-have differencing utility for Web and software developers working with XML.

The DiffDog® 2008 XML file comparison mode includes all the same features that make text file differencing easy, such as file navigation aids and display customization options. Please refer to the file differencing page for more information on text file differencing. In addition to those features, DiffDog® 2008 includes functionality relevant to the unique nature of XML files.

When you select two XML files to compare, DiffDog® 2008 opens them side-by-side and indicates differences with colored highlighting and connecting lines. XML-conformant syntax coloring is supported, as well.

You have two options for displaying files: advanced text view and enhanced grid view. Advanced text view includes visual and navigation aids such as line numbers, book marks, and a source folding margin. Text view also allows you to pretty print XML files. Pretty printing reformats your XML document by indenting opening and closing element tags so that the layout reflects the structure of the document, making it easier to scan the XML markup and edit the document.

DiffDog® 2008 also includes the enhanced grid view popularized by Altova XMLSpy. Grid view displays the hierarchical structure of an XML document through a set of nested containers. These can be easily expanded and collapsed to get a clear picture of the document's tree-like structure. Grid view also allows you to display an XML document in database/table view, which displays sequences of repeating elements in a tabular way similar to familiar database and spreadsheet applications.

Grid view also includes an intuitive toolbar and right-click menu that allow you to insert and append elements, attributes, text, etc., add child elements and attributes, expand and collapse elements, and more.

Whether you’re working in text or grid view, DiffDog® 2008 allows you to navigate through the differences and merge changes between the files in either direction. Advanced XML find and replace capacities are also supported, with options for restricting your search by elements, attributes, or text, and others.

DiffDog® 2008 is designed to adapt to the nature of XML documents with features relevant to XML syntax. For example, when comparing XML documents, you can specify if entities should be resolved, if namespace prefixes, whitespace, CDATA, processing instructions, comments, or the ordering of attributes/child elements should be ignored or not, how to visualize differences, and so on.

These XML-aware options are important for ensuring relevant comparison results. Consider the following:

• Suppose the default namespace prefix in an XML instance document differs from the file you’re comparing it to. This change does not materially affect the contents of the document, and while a conventional differencing utility would report that virtually every line of code in the XML instance document has changed, DiffDog® 2008 will deal with this change appropriately.
• The order of XML attributes is irrelevant because XML processors do not consider the sequence that attributes appear in for a particular element. DiffDog® 2008 accounts for this and intelligently ignores the attribute order, while a utility without XML-aware capabilities will report every change in attribute ordering.
• There are instances when the ordering of child elements is irrelevant; for example, if a schema defines a relationship using an "all" compositor, the ordering of child elements is immaterial. You can easily set DiffDog® 2008 to overlook these types of irrelevant differences.
• There are many other situations that arise during XML development that require an XML-aware differencing utility such as DiffDog® 2008.

In addition, DiffDog® 2008 support for well-formedness and validation checking ensures that your files are well constructed.

As you are comparing XML files, you can edit them directly in the comparison window. All the DiffDog® 2008 text file editing capabilities are supported, along with XML-specific editing features such as DTD/schema based entry helpers and auto-completion of elements and attributes. These features allow you to edit your XML documents with ease and reduce the occurrence of errors. Then, you can use the built-in well-formedness and validation engines to check your files before saving them.

With its unique array of customizable XML differencing options and its affordable price, DiffDog® 2008 is a must for any developer working with XML. Give it a try for yourself today – download a free 30-day trial.