Comparing two XML documents

Testing RSpec
1

I have a problem. I have a test that needs to assert that one XML
document looks exactly like another XML document.

I couldn’t find a way to compare them as Nokogiri::XML::Documents, so I
converted them both to strings with #to_xml and compared the strings.

Trouble is, sometimes the attributes one of the nodes are rendered into
the string in a different order to the other one, so you get an error of
the form:

Diff:
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
    <Description/>
    <Context>
      <BackgroundLabels>
-        <Label mode="FILTER" name="included"/>
+        <Label name="included" mode="FILTER"/>
      </BackgroundLabels>
    </Context>
    <LookAndFeel nonprofit="false"/>
(RSpec::Expectations::ExpectationNotMetError)

Most annoying.

I’ve seen a couple of RSpec matchers in blog posts that walk and compare
XML fragments but I’m surprised there isn’t something more concrete that
already exists. I feel like I’m missing a way to do it within an XML
library, for example.

Any clues out there?

cheers,
Matt

[email protected]
07974 430184

2

Aaron P. (author of Nokogiri) addressed this issue directly here:
http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/nokogiri-talk/2009-April/000258.html
I don’t think document comparison was ever implemented in Nokogiri
though.

Cheers,

kam

3

I load my XML docs into a hash using Hash#from_xml and then compare the
hashes.

4

On 31 Jan 2011, at 08:26, Pat M. wrote:

I load my XML docs into a hash using Hash#from_xml and then compare the hashes.

Bullseye! Thanks Pat.

  <Description/>

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cheers,
Matt

[email protected]
07974 430184