Best way to compare 2 XML documents in Java

Question

I'm trying to write an automated test of an application that basically translates a custom message format into an XML message and sends it out the other end. I've got a good set of input/output message pairs so all I need to do is send the input messages in and listen for the XML message to come out the other end.

When it comes time to compare the actual output to the expected output I'm running into some problems. My first thought was just to do string comparisons on the expected and actual messages. This doens't work very well because the example data we have isn't always formatted consistently and there are often times different aliases used for the XML namespace (and sometimes namespaces aren't used at all.)

I know I can parse both strings and then walk through each element and compare them myself and this wouldn't be too difficult to do, but I get the feeling there's a better way or a library I could leverage.

So, boiled down, the question is:

Given two Java Strings which both contain valid XML how would you go about determining if they are semantically equivalent? Bonus points if you have a way to determine what the differences are.

Answer 1

I'm using Altova DiffDog which has options to compare XML files structurally (ignoring string data).

This means that (if checking the 'ignore text' option):

<foo a="xxx" b="xxx">xxx</foo>

and

<foo b="yyy" a="yyy">yyy</foo> 

are equal in the sense that they have structural equality. This is handy if you have example files that differ in data, but not structure!

Answer 2

Xom has a Canonicalizer utility which turns your DOMs into a regular form, which you can then stringify and compare. So regardless of whitespace irregularities or attribute ordering, you can get regular, predictable comparisons of your documents.

This works especially well in IDEs that have dedicated visual String comparators, like Eclipse. You get a visual representation of the semantic differences between the documents.

Answer 3

Sounds like a job for XMLUnit

• http://www.xmlunit.org/
• https://github.com/xmlunit

Example:

public class SomeTest extends XMLTestCase {
  @Test
  public void test() {
    String xml1 = ...
    String xml2 = ...

    XMLUnit.setIgnoreWhitespace(true); // ignore whitespace differences

    // can also compare xml Documents, InputSources, Readers, Diffs
    assertXMLEquals(xml1, xml2);  // assertXMLEquals comes from XMLTestCase
  }
}

Answer 4

skaffman seems to be giving a good answer.

another way is probably to format the XML using a commmand line utility like xmlstarlet(http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) and then format both the strings and then use any diff utility(library) to diff the resulting output files. I don't know if this is a good solution when issues are with namespaces.

Answer 5

The following will check if the documents are equal using standard JDK libraries.

DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
dbf.setNamespaceAware(true);
dbf.setCoalescing(true);
dbf.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true);
dbf.setIgnoringComments(true);
DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();

Document doc1 = db.parse(new File("file1.xml"));
doc1.normalizeDocument();

Document doc2 = db.parse(new File("file2.xml"));
doc2.normalizeDocument();

Assert.assertTrue(doc1.isEqualNode(doc2));

normalize() is there to make sure there are no cycles (there technically wouldn't be any)

The above code will require the white spaces to be the same within the elements though, because it preserves and evaluates it. The standard XML parser that comes with Java does not allow you to set a feature to provide a canonical version or understand xml:space if that is going to be a problem then you may need a replacement XML parser such as xerces or use JDOM.

Answer 6

Thanks, I extended this, try this ...

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.NamedNodeMap;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;

public class XmlDiff 
{
    private boolean nodeTypeDiff = true;
    private boolean nodeValueDiff = true;

    public boolean diff( String xml1, String xml2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {
        DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        dbf.setNamespaceAware(true);
        dbf.setCoalescing(true);
        dbf.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true);
        dbf.setIgnoringComments(true);
        DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();


        Document doc1 = db.parse(new ByteArrayInputStream(xml1.getBytes()));
        Document doc2 = db.parse(new ByteArrayInputStream(xml2.getBytes()));

        doc1.normalizeDocument();
        doc2.normalizeDocument();

        return diff( doc1, doc2, diffs );

    }

    /**
     * Diff 2 nodes and put the diffs in the list 
     */
    public boolean diff( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {
        if( diffNodeExists( node1, node2, diffs ) )
        {
            return true;
        }

        if( nodeTypeDiff )
        {
            diffNodeType(node1, node2, diffs );
        }

        if( nodeValueDiff )
        {
            diffNodeValue(node1, node2, diffs );
        }


        System.out.println(node1.getNodeName() + "/" + node2.getNodeName());

        diffAttributes( node1, node2, diffs );
        diffNodes( node1, node2, diffs );

        return diffs.size() > 0;
    }

    /**
     * Diff the nodes
     */
    public boolean diffNodes( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {
        //Sort by Name
        Map<String,Node> children1 = new LinkedHashMap<String,Node>();      
        for( Node child1 = node1.getFirstChild(); child1 != null; child1 = child1.getNextSibling() )
        {
            children1.put( child1.getNodeName(), child1 );
        }

        //Sort by Name
        Map<String,Node> children2 = new LinkedHashMap<String,Node>();      
        for( Node child2 = node2.getFirstChild(); child2!= null; child2 = child2.getNextSibling() )
        {
            children2.put( child2.getNodeName(), child2 );
        }

        //Diff all the children1
        for( Node child1 : children1.values() )
        {
            Node child2 = children2.remove( child1.getNodeName() );
            diff( child1, child2, diffs );
        }

        //Diff all the children2 left over
        for( Node child2 : children2.values() )
        {
            Node child1 = children1.get( child2.getNodeName() );
            diff( child1, child2, diffs );
        }

        return diffs.size() > 0;
    }


    /**
     * Diff the nodes
     */
    public boolean diffAttributes( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {        
        //Sort by Name
        NamedNodeMap nodeMap1 = node1.getAttributes();
        Map<String,Node> attributes1 = new LinkedHashMap<String,Node>();        
        for( int index = 0; nodeMap1 != null && index < nodeMap1.getLength(); index++ )
        {
            attributes1.put( nodeMap1.item(index).getNodeName(), nodeMap1.item(index) );
        }

        //Sort by Name
        NamedNodeMap nodeMap2 = node2.getAttributes();
        Map<String,Node> attributes2 = new LinkedHashMap<String,Node>();        
        for( int index = 0; nodeMap2 != null && index < nodeMap2.getLength(); index++ )
        {
            attributes2.put( nodeMap2.item(index).getNodeName(), nodeMap2.item(index) );

        }

        //Diff all the attributes1
        for( Node attribute1 : attributes1.values() )
        {
            Node attribute2 = attributes2.remove( attribute1.getNodeName() );
            diff( attribute1, attribute2, diffs );
        }

        //Diff all the attributes2 left over
        for( Node attribute2 : attributes2.values() )
        {
            Node attribute1 = attributes1.get( attribute2.getNodeName() );
            diff( attribute1, attribute2, diffs );
        }

        return diffs.size() > 0;
    }
    /**
     * Check that the nodes exist
     */
    public boolean diffNodeExists( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {
        if( node1 == null && node2 == null )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node2) + ":node " + node1 + "!=" + node2 + "\n" );
            return true;
        }

        if( node1 == null && node2 != null )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node2) + ":node " + node1 + "!=" + node2.getNodeName() );
            return true;
        }

        if( node1 != null && node2 == null )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node1) + ":node " + node1.getNodeName() + "!=" + node2 );
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Diff the Node Type
     */
    public boolean diffNodeType( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {       
        if( node1.getNodeType() != node2.getNodeType() ) 
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node1) + ":type " + node1.getNodeType() + "!=" + node2.getNodeType() );
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Diff the Node Value
     */
    public boolean diffNodeValue( Node node1, Node node2, List<String> diffs ) throws Exception
    {       
        if( node1.getNodeValue() == null && node2.getNodeValue() == null )
        {
            return false;
        }

        if( node1.getNodeValue() == null && node2.getNodeValue() != null )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node1) + ":type " + node1 + "!=" + node2.getNodeValue() );
            return true;
        }

        if( node1.getNodeValue() != null && node2.getNodeValue() == null )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node1) + ":type " + node1.getNodeValue() + "!=" + node2 );
            return true;
        }

        if( !node1.getNodeValue().equals( node2.getNodeValue() ) )
        {
            diffs.add( getPath(node1) + ":type " + node1.getNodeValue() + "!=" + node2.getNodeValue() );
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }


    /**
     * Get the node path
     */
    public String getPath( Node node )
    {
        StringBuilder path = new StringBuilder();

        do
        {           
            path.insert(0, node.getNodeName() );
            path.insert( 0, "/" );
        }
        while( ( node = node.getParentNode() ) != null );

        return path.toString();
    }
}