docbook-apps

Is there any program out there which, given two versions of a DocBook v5
file, finds the differences and outputs a marked-up version *using the
revisionflag attributes*?

Afaik, most xml diff programs create an output more like the traditional
line-based diff program, or some sort of 'patch' output. One exception
is Norm Walsh's diffmk program, which is supposed to set the
revisionflag attributes. Unfortunately, v2 of this program sees to work
only with DocBook v4 (and possibly earlier) documents; in particular, it
requires a DocType. And I can't get v3 to run at all, it just gives me
the ff. error:
Failed to load Main-Class manifest attribute
which seems to mean that something that's supposed to be there (the
equivalent of a 'main' in some programming languages, maybe) isn't.

I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.
--
Mike Maxwell
maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu
"A library is the best possible imitation, by human beings,
of a divine mind, where the whole universe is viewed and
understood at the same time... we have invented libraries
because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we
try to do our best to imitate them." --Umberto Eco

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Mike Maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
> Is there any program out there which, given two versions of a DocBook v5
> file, finds the differences and outputs a marked-up version *using the
> revisionflag attributes*?

oXygen's XML Diff (http://www.oxygenxml.com/xml_diff_and_merge.html)
and DeltaXML (http://www.deltaxml.com/) are the two commercial
differencing products I'm aware of. I believe that DeltaXML does
generate the revisionflag-marked output documents.


Keith

On 11/13/2010 9:50 PM, Keith Fahlgren wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Mike Maxwell<maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
>> Is there any program out there which, given two versions of a DocBook v5
>> file, finds the differences and outputs a marked-up version *using the
>> revisionflag attributes*?
>
> oXygen's XML Diff (http://www.oxygenxml.com/xml_diff_and_merge.html)
> and DeltaXML (http://www.deltaxml.com/) are the two commercial
> differencing products I'm aware of. I believe that DeltaXML does
> generate the revisionflag-marked output documents.

Ah, thanks, I missed that! From their website:
DeltaXML DocBook Compare highlights changes between
any two docbook files. Docbook Compare performs a
detailed comparison between the two files and
automatically adds revision flags to highlight added,
deleted or changed text. Changes to individual table
cells are clearly identified.
But what a price :-(: $1500/year for a site license! (Which is the
cheapest license they have; the only other choice is a multiple site
license.)
--
Mike Maxwell
maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu
"A library is the best possible imitation, by human beings,
of a divine mind, where the whole universe is viewed and
understood at the same time... we have invented libraries
because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we
try to do our best to imitate them." --Umberto Eco

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Mike Maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
> But what a price :-(

Understood. I haven't used either tool in a production environment, so
I'm unable to give any endorsement. That said, I would not expect a
feature-complete open source alternative in the short term:
(schema-aware-) XML differencing is a seriously hard problem.


Keith

On 11/14/2010 12:52 AM, Keith Fahlgren wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Mike Maxwell<maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:
>> But what a price :-(
>
> Understood. I haven't used either tool in a production environment, so
> I'm unable to give any endorsement. That said, I would not expect a
> feature-complete open source alternative in the short term:
> (schema-aware-) XML differencing is a seriously hard problem.

Would it be possible to do a two-step diff:
1) Run another XML diff, which produces some format like a patch
2) Use the patch to create a modified version of one of the input files,
with 'revisionflag' appropriately marked.

There seem to be several programs "out there" that accomplish step (1),
although I have no idea how well they work. It seems like a fairly
simple task to write a program that would perform step (2). Admittedly,
I haven't tried that, and it could be lots harder than I think :-).
--
Mike Maxwell
maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu
"A library is the best possible imitation, by human beings,
of a divine mind, where the whole universe is viewed and
understood at the same time... we have invented libraries
because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we
try to do our best to imitate them." --Umberto Eco

We are using deltaxml as part of our publish flow: whenever a document is
published, we generate two pdf's, one vanilla, one marked up with all the
changes.

Deltaxml has been working very well in this flow.

We started out looking for an open source solution, but were not able to
find one that provided satisfactory results.

MT
--


On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Keith Fahlgren <abdelazer@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Mike Maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu>
> wrote:
> > But what a price :-(
>
> Understood. I haven't used either tool in a production environment, so
> I'm unable to give any endorsement. That said, I would not expect a
> feature-complete open source alternative in the short term:
> (schema-aware-) XML differencing is a seriously hard problem.
>
>
> Keith
>
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