Comparison of two XML files node by node in .NET

Question

I want to compare two xml files node by node(to check if both contain the same nodes with the same attributes,etc) and highlight the differences in the two xml files and print the nodes which are missing in either of the xml files using .NET

Also I would like to know what are all the methods of comparing xml files other than using .NET

Could someone give me an insight into this?

How is this not a real question? – John Saunders Apr 22 '11 at 19:59 — John Saunders, Apr 22 '11 at 19:59

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 22 '11 at 17:05

Well rather than writing an algorithm manually, you can use an open-source library like this one: http://diffplex.codeplex.com/ It does a line by line comparison rather than node-by-node comparison but it will save you the hassle of implementing all the highlighting and visuals by hand.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 22 '11 at 19:26

if you know the structure of your xml, you can deserialize it into objects and compare that way, this will take care of things being out of order and nodes looking like <foo /> vs <foo></foo>.

otherwise, it's more difficult. check out this link: XmlDiff

Comparison of two XML files node by node in .NET

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