Most of the time I use the "Compare" plugin in Notepad++, with "detect moves" enabled and "ignore spaces" disabled. I used to have a nice GUI that was freeware, but then they started charging...

The important thing is that any added whitespace outside of quotes and tag names, or different ordering of complete tags, are not relevant.  Notepad++ is *NOT* XML-aware, so it needs to detect whitespace differences within tags and values.  Moves are acceptable so long as the entire statement moves to another line. This isn't actually an issue for the config files as there are few, if any, nested XML variables.

Neil G4DBN

Neil, what sw do you use for "XML diff"? Is there a Windows application with modern UI or do you use command line tools for that?

 

BR, Otso

 

 

Gesendet: Samstag, 21. November 2020 um 20:29 Uhr
Von: "Neil Smith G4DBN" <neil@...>
An: EladSDR@groups.io
Betreff: Re: [EladSDR] Help needed Please

I keep a copy of a full-working set of the XML files, either before and after an upgrade, and on the first day of each month.  Then if there is a crash or an error on shutdown, and the XML files get munged, I cna either pull a recent copy from FileHistory, or restore the last-known-good files.

I also try to remember to run an XML diff on the files to determine what went wrong, so I can raise a ticket if it looks like a bug, or at least have a record so I can tell someone else with the same preoblem what happened to my installation.

Right, I need to get some stuff done, so turning my emails and Twitter off for a few hours/days.  Glad it is fixed.

Neil

On 21/11/2020 20:20, R GRAYSTOCK via groups.io wrote:

Hello Neil.  Well you got it right first time.  I found two config files with the same name, I checked and they both contained identical data. I deleted one and behold everything worked as normal.

Before today I was convinced that it was not possible to have two identical files in the same directory.  The question remains how can this happen in the middle of just using the software which has been in place for weeks.  It had me beet!

Once again many thanks to your pointer.

Best Regards

Bob       P.S.  Any thoughts regarding the DUO-X 

 

 

On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 at 19:41, Neil Smith G4DBN <neil@...> wrote:

Hi Bob, did you try deleting or moving the XML config files, which is the first step when this sort of thing happens? It isn't in your list of things tried...

Neil G4DBN

 

-- 
Neil
http://g4dbn.uk

I sometimes use the online tool at https://www.corefiling.com/opensource/xmldiff/ which seems to be schema-aware.

Altova XMLSpy is a tool I use at work, but it is expensive! Their DiffDog tool is also XML-aware, but doesn't have the full capabilities of an XML editor.

DiffXML seems to have been abandoned by the author, but might do what you need https://sourceforge.net/projects/diffxml/files/diffxml/

Neil

Thanks Neil. Notepad++ seems to be better than other solutions I have tried. Obviously, if it actually understood the XML structure, it would be better.

 

One application I have for this is to see differences between StationMemory files from dirrerent computers.

 

BR, Otso

 

 

Gesendet: Samstag, 21. November 2020 um 21:19 Uhr
Von: "Neil Smith G4DBN" <neil@...>
An: EladSDR@groups.io
Betreff: Re: XML diff (was: [EladSDR] Help needed Please)

Most of the time I use the "Compare" plugin in Notepad++, with "detect moves" enabled and "ignore spaces" disabled. I used to have a nice GUI that was freeware, but then they started charging...

The important thing is that any added whitespace outside of quotes and tag names, or different ordering of complete tags, are not relevant.  Notepad++ is *NOT* XML-aware, so it needs to detect whitespace differences within tags and values.  Moves are acceptable so long as the entire statement moves to another line. This isn't actually an issue for the config files as there are few, if any, nested XML variables.

Neil G4DBN

On 21/11/2020 20:40, Otso Ylönen wrote:

Neil, what sw do you use for "XML diff"? Is there a Windows application with modern UI or do you use command line tools for that?

 

BR, Otso

 

 

Gesendet: Samstag, 21. November 2020 um 20:29 Uhr
Von: "Neil Smith G4DBN" <neil@...>
An: EladSDR@groups.io
Betreff: Re: [EladSDR] Help needed Please

I keep a copy of a full-working set of the XML files, either before and after an upgrade, and on the first day of each month.  Then if there is a crash or an error on shutdown, and the XML files get munged, I cna either pull a recent copy from FileHistory, or restore the last-known-good files.

I also try to remember to run an XML diff on the files to determine what went wrong, so I can raise a ticket if it looks like a bug, or at least have a record so I can tell someone else with the same preoblem what happened to my installation.

Right, I need to get some stuff done, so turning my emails and Twitter off for a few hours/days.  Glad it is fixed.

Neil

On 21/11/2020 20:20, R GRAYSTOCK via groups.io wrote:

Hello Neil.  Well you got it right first time.  I found two config files with the same name, I checked and they both contained identical data. I deleted one and behold everything worked as normal.

Before today I was convinced that it was not possible to have two identical files in the same directory.  The question remains how can this happen in the middle of just using the software which has been in place for weeks.  It had me beet!

Once again many thanks to your pointer.

Best Regards

Bob       P.S.  Any thoughts regarding the DUO-X 

 

 

On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 at 19:41, Neil Smith G4DBN <neil@...> wrote:

Hi Bob, did you try deleting or moving the XML config files, which is the first step when this sort of thing happens? It isn't in your list of things tried...

Neil G4DBN

--
Neil
http://g4dbn.uk

-- 
Neil
http://g4dbn.uk