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Asked: 2026-05-11T15:12:57+00:00

I need to manage XML documents in Subversion but don’t want to manage the

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I need to manage XML documents in Subversion but don’t want to manage the formatting which may turn out differently depending on who is editing the file.

I see two solutions: Either format the file each time with a known formatting before checking in. Or give svn a diff program that actively dismisses formatting from the diff algorithm. Ultimately the diff should of course support three-way merge actively ignoring the XML formatting.

What do you recommend?

(The same reasoning usually applies to code source files, but the problem is more difficult.)

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  1. I don’t have a lot of personal experience with such a setup.

    For the second method (a custom diff), what I’ve found is an example, ‘API description for Netopeer repository library’ which is a detailed description of a setup with Subversion and, among other things, xmldiff.

    For the other approach, converting to a know format before storing in Subversion, I recommend Canonical XML as the format. The xmllint tool, for instance, can convert to this format:

    % cat complique.xml <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <toto   >     <truc      a='1' >Machin &#x43; </truc >café</toto>  % xmllint --c14n complique.xml     <toto>     <truc a='1'>Machin C </truc>café</toto>

    To integrate with Subversion, you could test in pre-commit that the submitted file is equal to the canonical file. A possible such script is my pre-commit using xmllint. See also the enforcer script for an example.

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