Tag Archive for: diff merge tool

How to Compare CSV Files or Compare a CSV File to a Database Table


CSV files are a quick and convenient way to record structured data in a generic format. Because CSV files are so easy to create, multiple similar versions of very large CSV files can quickly proliferate. Often it becomes necessary to compare CSV files to find the desired version. In an ETL scenario, a data analyst may want to compare a CSV file to a database table for validation or to update data.

DiffDog, the unique XML-aware diff / merge tool from Altova, supports CSV as a native file format for comparison and can compare and selectively merge data CSV to CSV, or between a CSV file and database table. Let’s look at an example.

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How to Compare XML and Other Files


The ability to diff and merge files is a necessity for every developer. This can be especially troublesome when trying to compare differences between files containing structured data, such as XML.

The video tutorial below provides an explanation on how to compare XML files – and more – using both XMLSpy and DiffDog. These powerful utilities perform diff and merge operations in an XML-aware manner, which reduces the number of false positives seen when comparing files.

Compare XML files with XMLSpy

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Automate Word Document Comparison in Busy Enterprises


Many enterprises and business situations leverage Microsoft Word documents in standardized formats, with variations in content in subsequent versions. Think of contracts or other legal documents, status reports, test results, lists of rules, and many others. These documents may even be generated through automated processes. Manually identifying and reporting changes between versions would be a cumbersome process. Altova DiffDog Server provides an efficient, automated solution.

DiffDog Server brings the file and directory comparison power of Altova DiffDog to high-performance servers, making it easy to automate Word document comparison and generate diff reports comparing files, directories, or URLs, and even Word documents (.docx) saved in MS Office versions 2007 or later.

Let’s look at a Word document comparison.

Automate Word document comparison with DiffDog Server
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DiffDog E-book Now Available


We’ve published an e-book in multiple formats for your favorite tablet or other e-reader.

DiffDog Field Trials e-book cover image

DiffDog Field Trials is a collection of information from the Altova blog, Tech Notes from the Library section of the Altova Web site, and DiffDog product feature pages. The e-book describes a wide range of real-world applications for DiffDog, Altova’s XML-aware diff/merge tool for files, folders, directories, and databases.

You can download DiffDog Field Trials from the Altova Web site in various formats:

· EPUB (1.57 mb)

· Kindle (3.08 mb)

· PDF (11.1 mb)

· iBooks (16.5 mb)

Or, look for DiffDog Field Trials soon in your favorite online electronic bookstore.

Editing EPUB files with DiffDog

As you can see from the list above, EPUB, the XML-based free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), is potentially the most efficient sharable file format. An EPUB document is based on a ZIP compressed archive containing style information, text formatted as html, and the images that appear in the e-book.

Altova XMLSpy provides powerful support for accessing, editing, validating and previewing EPUB 2.x documents. We used XMLSpy to assemble the EPUB version of our book, where we were able to interactively preview the result as we worked:
XMLSpy EPUB Preview Window Read more…

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Compare Folders Fast and Efficiently with DiffDog


Three user preferences in DiffDog work together to accelerate directory differencing tasks into hyperdrive, especially when you compare folders with thousands of files.DiffDog can perform specialized comparisons. For instance, XML comparison mode commands DiffDog to determine whether two files contain equivalent XML content, even if they would be different in a text comparison because of spacing, line-ending, or attribute order variations. For the fastest directory comparisons, choose Quick Comparison mode, which only looks at file sizes and modification dates.

DiffDog Quick Comparison toolbar button

When you compare large directories, most often you want to quickly locate differences. Choose the Hide Equal setting to avoid listing all identical files.

DiffDog Show/Hide equal toolbar button

Show/Hide empty directories should be set to Hide, otherwise subdirectories that contain identical files will be listed, but since their contents are equal, none of the files are shown.

DiffDog Show/Hide empty directories toolbar button

After you choose settings and click the Compare button, DiffDog flies through the directory comparison.

DiffDog Quick Comparison progress bar

When the comparison is finished DiffDog displays a concise listing showing only the differences, with a summary message at the bottom of the window. The toolbar in the screenshot below illustrates the settings for Quick Comparison on, Show Equal files off, and Show Empty directories off.

DiffDog directory comparison results

DiffDog saves your preferences to apply to the next folder comparison, and DiffDog even includes a quick synchronization tool to merge folders in either direction.

DiffDog Synchronize directories summary

Find out for yourself how fast DiffDog can run your folder comparisons – download a fully-functional, free 30-day trial!

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DiffDog Takes to the Cloud


Techy folks generally have a good diff tool they rely on to compare and sync files and directories. But what happens when, as more and more info is bound for the cloud, your data lives on servers accessed via URL? DiffDog diff/merge tool There are myriad applications today that live on servers accessed via HTPP – but let’s take a look at a common example: SVN. Subversion (SVN) repositories include WebDAV as a commonly used server option. WebDAV is a natural protocol for SVN because its concern is hierarchy, structured metadata, and versions. Since WebDAV is an extension of HTTP it gives easy access to basic information about files and folders to any HTTP-aware client, including DiffDog – Altova’s diff/merge tool for files, directories, and databases. However, DiffDog knows a few tricks that set it apart from the other breeds.

Diff/Merge via WebDAV

SVN clients typically support command line differencing; however, a text-only representation of the changes in even one file can be hard to read and use. When you want to compare the trunk against a tagged version, the problem is magnified.  There are several visual differencing tools available that can help with analyzing version changes in SVN. They have varying degrees of compatibility with how SVN works. Some tools are well integrated with the SVN command line. DiffDog includes all the common comparison options for a tool that is tightly integrated with SVN clients.  Where it excels is its ability to talk to SVN servers.  Accessing an SVN repository with DiffDog using WebDAV is simple. The easiest starting point is to open Directory Comparison View and paste in the URLs of the folders you want to compare. In this case we’re comparing SVN branches on Projectlocker.com. The two sets of files open, and DiffDog provides a color-coded, browsable view of the differences between the two directories. Directory Comparison in DiffDog   Clicking on either one of a pair of files opens a detailed file comparison.   File comparison in DiffDog DiffDog’s ability to distinguish between changes to XML and meaningful changes is key in this situation – most development trees have some amount of XML in them.  DiffDog also supports comparing Word docs and databases – so all bases are covered. XML-aware diff options Of course, folders you compare do not have to both be WebDAV SVN folders.  It is equally straightforward to compare the SVN server with a local directory. DiffDog’s ability to access servers via HTTP (or FTP) opens a world of possibilities: comparing a local directory with a Google Docs directory, or diffing a local Web server against files hosted on the Amazon CloudFront , or even just synching photos between your local drive and your chosen back- up service.   If you’d like to try DiffDog, it’s available for a 30-day trial over on the Altova Web site.

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Directory Sync Tools: Move over little dog, a new DiffDog is moving in


Altova DiffDog was originally launched in 2005 as a diff/merge tool with XML-aware functionality to help users identify differences between XML files. It even identifies files that are XML-equivalent but appear different in a text comparison because of spacing, line-ending, or attribute order variations. Altova DiffDog DiffDog has continually improved over time with many new features including:

DiffDog 2011 Release 3 adds a new simplified directory sync feature to its robust folder diff/merge functionality. The Synchronize Directories dialog now includes a button at the top to select a complete directory sync in a single step. Folder sync tool mode selection The Fully Synchronize feature produces an exact copy of the source directory, even if the target has newer versions of some files, and deletes files from the target that don’t exist on the source, making this choice a quick tool to backup complex directories containing many files and sub-folders. DiffDog provides a summary of all actions to be taken before any files are copied or deleted: Folder sync summary If you want to prevent a file being overwritten or deleted from the target directory, you can click Cancel, and then use the Manual Override feature to ignore or reverse the copy direction for any file pair. Folder sync tool Manual override option Pretty good trick for an app that’s older than 42 in dog years*, isn’t it? Find out for yourself how DiffDog can faithfully synchronize your directories – download a fully-functional, free 30-day trial! * Popular myth suggests that one calendar year for a software developer is equivalent to 7 years in the life of a dog. For a more complete discussion of canine lifespan, see the Wikipedia article titled Aging in Dogs.

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