Altova DiffDog Server 2025 

When comparing directories, you can view the comparison report in either text or XML format (set with --output-mode). (Note, however, that reports in XML format are not supported if --dir-compare-contents=true; this is because the result of comparing XML files can be reported only in XML format.) To understand how DiffDog Server reports differences between directories, let's assume that the following two directories must be compared side-by-side.

When the two directories are compared in the graphical interface of DiffDog (screenshot below), the differences between the two directories can be seen clearly, as shown below. The sub-directory documents is missing in dir2, the file img1.png is missing in dir1, and the file Metamorphosis.txt has different modification times.

In DiffDog Server, you can run the command below to compare these two directories and receive a comparison report in text format.

diffdogcmdlclient diff dir1 dir2 --output-mode=text --output-file=report.txt --dir-compare-sizes=true --dir-compare-mod-times=true

•The --output-mode and --output-file options set the report format to text and specify the location where the report will be saved.

•The directory comparison is "quick" because file contents are not searched (the --dir-compare-contents options has not been set to true; its default is false).

•Also in a "quick" comparison, only the size and modification dates of files inside the two directories are compared (--dir-compare-sizes=true and --dir-compare-mod-times=true).

•Since there is no --quiet=true option, the comparison report will be generated to the command line as well as to an output file. See "Report formats" in the topic Comparison Results.

Note: The DiffDog setting for "quick" directory comparisons checks directories only for the size and modification times of their files and sub-directories; the contents of files are not compared. In DiffDog Server, a "quick" comparison is the default setting. You must set the --mode option to compare the file contents of directories.

In the sections below, we describe how the comparison results are displayed in text and XML reports, respectively.

Text report

In the text report produced after running the comparison, the differences are reported as follows:

< documents/

! Metamorphosis.txt

> img1.png

These text reports are read as follows:

•"<" means the object exists in the left directory only.

•">" means the object exists in the right directory only.

•A trailing forward slash denotes a directory—as opposed to a file (see documents/ above).

•The "!" character indicates differences in the corresponding files.

XML report

Let's now run the same comparison, and change only the format of the report file from text to XML.

diffdogcmdlclient diff dir1 dir2 --output-mode=xml --output-file=report.xml --dir-compare-sizes=true --dir-compare-mod-times=true

In the XML report produced after running the comparison, the differences are reported as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- Differencing export generated by Altova DiffDog Server -->
<diff_result>
  <diff_info comparison_mode="quick">
     <source_left name="c:\dir1" uri="file:///c:/dir1"/>
     <source_right name="c:\dir2" uri="file:///c:/dir2"/>
  </diff_info>
  <file_diff location="">
    <left_content>
        <directory name="documents"/>
    </left_content>
    <changed_content>
        <file name="Metamorphosis.txt"/>
    </changed_content>
    <right_content>
        <file name="img1.png"/>
    </right_content>
  </file_diff>
</diff_result>

Note the following points about the XML report:

•The diff_info element at the top supplies information about the directories that were compared, including the comparison mode used and the paths of the compared directories. This element occurs only once. (The comparison_mode attribute indicates the value supplied for the --mode option at the command line—or the option's default value (quick) if no value was supplied at the command line.)

•The file_diff element contains the differences and occurs only once.

•Differences are listed in two types of element: (i) left_content or right_content and (ii) changed_content.

•The left_content or right_content element shows whether that side contains a directory or file that the other side does not contain.

•The changed_content element lists the directories or files that have changed.