⚠️ THIS REPO IS DEPRECATED (6/1/2018) ⚠️

xtdiff: XML Tree Diff

XML Tree Diff is a Python library that implements "Change detection in hierarchically structured information", by Sudarshan S. Chawathe, Anand Rajaraman, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Jennifer Widom..

This means it is a library that will compare two (lxml) XML trees and generate a set of actions that will transform one tree into the other.

• Requirements
• Installation
• Using xtdiff
  • diff(): Generating diffs
  • transform(): Applying diffs
  • xsldiff(): Generating XSL diffs
• Licensing

Requirements

It supports Python 2.7 and Python 3.4, but really, you should be using Python 3, shouldn't you?

xtdiff requires:

• lxml

Installation

xtdiff can be installed as a Python package:

pip install git+https://github.com/cfpb/xtdiff

Using xtdiff

>>> from lxml import etree
>>> import xtdiff

diff(): Generating diffs

xtdiff has a diff() function that takes two lxml Element objects and returns an ordered set of actions as an OrderedSet that will transform the first (hereafter referred to as the "left") into the second (hereafter referred to as the "right").

There are four possible actions that can be performed, INSERT, UPDATE, MOVE, and DELETE.

Insertions

When the right tree contains nodes that are not found in the left tree, the INSERT action will be returned as part of the set of actions.

The INSERT action includes the node to be inserted as a string, the XPath to the parent in which to insert the node, and the index at which it should be inserted into the parent.

>>> left = """<root>
... </root>"""
>>> right = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</para>
... </root>"""
>>> xtdiff.diff(etree.fromstring(left), etree.fromstring(right))
OrderedSet([
    INSERT(node=b'<para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</para>\n', 
           parent='/root', 
           index=0)
])

Updates

When both the left and right tree contain the same node, but the text contents or attributes of that node have changed, an UPDATE action will be returned as part of the set of actions.

The UPDATE action includes the XPath to the node that needs to be updated along with the new text, tail, and attributes.

>>> left = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</para>
... </root>"""
>>> right = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</para>
... </root>"""
>>> xtdiff.diff(etree.fromstring(left), etree.fromstring(right))
OrderedSet([
    UPDATE(path='/root/para', 
           text='Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.', 
           tail='\n', 
           attrib=frozenset())
])

Moves

When both the left and right tree contain the same node, but the node has a different parent, or is located at a different place within the same parent, a MOVE action will be returned as part of the set of actions.

The MOVE action includes the XPath to the node that needs to be moved the XPath to the node's (possibly new) parent, and the index at which it should be inserted into the parent.

>>> left = """<root>
...   <para>Cras tellus turpis, tincidunt tristique ipsum aliquam, semper mollis nisi.</para>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</para>
... </root>"""
>>> right = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</para>
...   <para>Cras tellus turpis, tincidunt tristique ipsum aliquam, semper mollis nisi.</para>
</root>"""
>>> xtdiff.diff(etree.fromstring(left), etree.fromstring(right))
OrderedSet([
    MOVE(path='/root/para[2]', parent='/root', index=0)
])

Deletions

When the left tree contains a node that does not appear in the right tree, a DELETE action will be returned as part of the set of actions.

The DELETE action includes the XPath to the node that needs to be deleted.

>>> left = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</para>
...   <para>Cras tellus turpis, tincidunt tristique ipsum aliquam, semper mollis nisi.</para>
... </root>"""
>>> right = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</para>
</root>"""
>>> xtdiff.diff(etree.fromstring(left), etree.fromstring(right))
OrderedSet([
    DELETE(path='/root/para[2]')
])

transform(): Applying diffs

xtdiff includes a function, transform(), that will apply a set of actions returned by the diff function to the lxml element given.

>>> left = """<root>
... </root>"""
>>> left_root = etree.fromstring(left)
>>> right = """<root>
...   <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</para>
... </root>"""
>>> right_root = etree.fromstring(right)
>>> actions = xtdiff.diff(left_root, right_root)
>>> new_root = xtdiff.transform(left_tree, actions)
>>> etree.tostring(new_root)
<root>
  <para>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</para>
</root>"

xsldiff(): Generating XSL diffs

xtdiff can also generate an XSL stylesheet that can be used to transform the left XML document into the right document. The API for generating XSL diffs is the same as for generating an OrderedSet edit script outlined above.

The xsldiff() function takes a left lxml Element and a right lxml Element and returns an Element representing the XSL stylesheet. The stylesheet can then be writen to disk an applied to the original document as needed.

>>> left = "..."
>>> right = "..."
>>> xsl = xtdiff.xsldiff(etree.fromstring(left), etree.fromstring(right))
>>> etree.tostring(xsl)
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  ...
</xsl:stylesheet>

An existing OrderedSet edit script can also be serialized to XSL with the toxsl() function:

>>> actions = xtdiff.diff(left_root, right_root)
>>> xsl = xtdiff.toxsl(actions)
>>> etree.tostring(xsl)
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  ...
</xsl:stylesheet>

NOTE: The XSL stylesheet will only work with the specific left document it was generated for, not documents comforming to its schema generally.

Licensing

1. TERMS
2. LICENSE
3. CFPB Source Code Policy