Class XmlDiff

java.lang.Object
eu.maveniverse.domtrip.XmlDiff
public final class XmlDiff extends Object
XML-aware structural diff engine that compares two documents and detects both semantic and formatting-only changes.

Because DomTrip preserves all formatting metadata (whitespace, quote styles, entity encoding, empty element style), this diff can uniquely distinguish between changes that affect meaning and changes that are formatting-only. This is a capability no other Java XML library offers.

Basic usage:

Document before = Document.of(oldXml);
Document after = Document.of(newXml);

DiffResult diff = XmlDiff.diff(before, after);

for (XmlChange change : diff.changes()) {
    System.out.println(change);
}
// → ELEMENT_ADDED: /project/dependencies/dependency[3]
// → TEXT_CHANGED: /project/version: "1.0" → "1.1"
// → ATTRIBUTE_CHANGED: /project/dependencies/dependency[2]/@scope: "compile" → "test"

Configurable matching:

DiffConfig config = DiffConfig.builder()
    .matchBy("dependency", "groupId", "artifactId")
    .build();

DiffResult diff = XmlDiff.diff(before, after, config);
Since:
1.3.0
See Also:

  • Method Details

    • diff

      public static DiffResult diff(Document before, Document after)
      Compares two documents using default configuration (positional matching).
      Parameters:
      before - the original document
      after - the modified document
      Returns:
      the diff result containing all detected changes

    • diff

      public static DiffResult diff(Document before, Document after, DiffConfig config)
      Compares two documents using the given configuration.
      Parameters:
      before - the original document
      after - the modified document
      config - the diff configuration controlling element matching
      Returns:
      the diff result containing all detected changes