XML and folder comparisons are similar in some aspects, e.g. they both represent structured, hierarchical content, and different in others—e.g. the XML structure view represents XML nodes—elements, attributes, etc.—while the nodes in the folder comparison view represent files and folders on the file system.
Both comparisons use the same way of depicting differences—deleted, added, and different nodes are shown using colored lines running horizontally through the comparison window. The same operations for selecting and expanding nodes apply in both comparisons.
According to the W3C, when two XML documents have the same canonical form, they are logically equivalent within the given application context (except a few limitations covering unusual cases). The canonical form, therefore, is the ideal form for XML files to be in for the purposes of comparison, as it eliminates most irrelevant differences.
With this release DeltaWalker lays the foundation of what can be done with XML files in the context of structured representation—operations like editing, and merging, DTD or XML schema validation are all to come.
That said, this release brings you the following features, important in the context of comparing XML files: