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Re: what is the meaning of similar in xmlUnit

• To: "Li Yuejiong(John)" <john_li@m...>
• Subject: Re: what is the meaning of similar in xmlUnit
• From: Mike Moran <mike_moran@m...>
• Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 15:15:11 +0100
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <EDBEE001298F534EBCFEE2C1B4FAC86D6C08DE@m...>
• References: <EDBEE001298F534EBCFEE2C1B4FAC86D6C08DE@m...>

On 4 Aug 2005, at 14:48, Li Yuejiong(John) wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In xmlUnit calss XmlTestCase, there are functions named assertXMLEqual
> which assert that two XML documents are similar. According the
> description of function similar in class Diff, "two documents are
> considered to be "similar" if they contain the same elements and
> attributes regardless of order. "
>
> I construct two xml files,
> ============================
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xbrl>
>   <context id="Current_AsOf"/>
>   <context id="Current_ForPeriod"/>
> </xbrl>
> ============================
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xbrl>
>   <context id="Current_ForPeriod"/>
>   <context id="Current_AsOf"/>
> </xbrl>
> ============================
>
> In my application, these two xml files are equal. But when I try to
> similar them as below, I alwayse get the error message "[different]
> Expected attribute value 'Current_AsOf' but was 'Current_ForPeriod' -
> comparing <context id="Current_AsOf"...>"
>
>

[ ... ]

> What's wrong? Is there any way two compare these two files as equal?

I suspect this could be a bug. Have you tried something like this:

============================
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xbrl>
   <context id="Current_AsOf"/>
   <blah id="Current_ForPeriod"/>
</xbrl>
============================
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xbrl>
   <blah id="Current_ForPeriod"/>
   <context id="Current_AsOf"/>
</xbrl>
============================

Perhaps XMLUnit only ignores sibling order if the sibling element names 
are different?
If it it still doesn't work you could try canonicalising the XML before 
passing to XMLUnit (e.g. through an XSLT sorting transform). However, 
that may defeat the point, if you are trying to get XMLUnit to do that 
sort of thing.

Btw, I'm not sure why you are asking this on xml-dev. Does XMLUnit not 
have a mailing list?

-- 
dahdah didi dahdidah di http://www.houseofmoran.com/blog/

• References:
  • what is the meaning of similar in xmlUnit
    • From: "Li Yuejiong(John)" <john_li@m...>

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