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This! If anyone thinks that it’s trivial to diff Microsoft’s XML formats then I urge you to please try this: • Create a simple Excel document. • Clone the doc
by cpach 7y ago
This! If anyone thinks that it’s trivial to diff Microsoft’s XML formats then I urge you to please try this:
• Create a simple Excel document.
• Clone the document and change the text value of one cell.
• Unzip both .xlsx files into two different directories.
• Now launch Meld/WinMerge or similar and diff the directories.
Now tell me if you still think diffing this format is trivial.
- barrkel 7y agoIf you just want a content-aware diff (never mind formatting), it's not actually that difficult to diff; read the stylesheet so you can understand the style refs, then parse the workbook sheets and look up style refs on demand. (Have written streaming XLSX parser in the past.)
- cpach 7y agoCool. Someone should do that :) [1] AFAIK there are no ready-made solutions for that so far. Would be very useful![2] [1] It would be interesting to dive further in to this subject but personally I can’t currently find the time for that. [2] Now that I think of it, this might be an interesting project for someone participating in Google Summer of Code. Not sure if the Git project will participate this year or not.