Comparison Results
When you run a comparison, the outcome of the comparison is reported by an exit code. For example, the following batch scripts run a comparison between two files. On Windows, it gets the exit code from the %ERRORLEVEL% environment variable. The equivalent Linux script is given further below.
Windows
SET DIFFDOGSERVER="C:\Program Files\Altova\DiffDogServer2025\bin\DiffDogServer.exe"
%DIFFDOGSERVER% diff book1.xml book2.xml --mode=xml
ECHO %ERRORLEVEL%
Linux
#!/bin/bash
DIFFDOGSERVER=/opt/Altova/DiffDogServer2025/bin/diffdogserver
${DIFFDOGSERVER} diff book1.xml book2.xml --mode=xml
echo $?
Exit codes
When you run a data-differencing command, the result is an exit code that is output to the command line. The table below lists the various exit codes and the meaning of each code.
Exit code | Meaning |
0 | No differences exist |
1 | Differences exist |
2 | An error has occurred |
When differences exist (that is, when Exit code = 1), you can also view a detailed comparison report directly at the command line. You can optionally output the report in XML or text format. To specify the output format as text or xml, set the --output-mode option. See below for details.
Report formats
The following table lists the report formats that are available for various types of comparison. You can use the CLI command's --output-mode option to specify the report format.
Type of comparison | XML report | Text report |
Text files | Yes | Yes |
Word documents | Yes | No |
XML files | Yes | No |
Binary files | No | No |
Directories | Yes | Yes |
Note the following points:
•The option --output-mode=text is not supported when comparing XML files or Word documents.
•Because of the nature of binary files, only an exit code is generated; no report is generated.
Output to command line or to file
By default, the report containing comparison results is displayed at the command line. You can also additionally redirect output to a file with the --output-file option. To suppress the output, set the option --quiet=true. So if you want to output the report only to file (and not to the command line), then use the --output-file option together with the --quiet=true. option.
For example, the commands below compare two text files using text comparison mode (--mode=text) and outputs the report in XML format (--output-mode=xml). For the differences in the output, see the comments below.
diffdogserver diff a.txt b.txt --mode=text --output-mode=xml --output-file=out.xml
diffdogserver diff a.txt b.txt --mode=text --output-mode=xml --output-file=out.xml --quiet=true
diffdogserver diff a.txt b.txt --mode=text --output-mode=xml --quiet=true
•The first command generates the report to the command line as well as to a file named out.xml (--output-file=out.xml).
•The second command generates the report only to a file named out.xml (--output-file=out.xml --quiet=true).
•The third command generates no report (--quiet=true, no --output-file option).