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| <TITLE>Implementing a structure viewer</TITLE> |
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| <H2> |
| Implementing a structure viewer</H2> |
| |
| |
| <p> |
| A structure merge viewer performs a two-way or three-way compare of its inputs, presents the result |
| in a hierarchical view, and lets the user merge between the inputs. |
| Structure merge viewers are common for workspace resources or the members of |
| an archive file.</p> |
| |
| |
| <h3>Tree-like structure viewers</h3> |
| |
| |
| <p>Because the implementation of many structure compare viewers is based |
| on a tree, the compare plug-in provides a generic tree-based |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/StructureDiffViewer.html"><b>StructureDiffViewer</b></a>. |
| Your plug-in is responsible for supplying a <b>structure creator</b> that breaks a single input object into a hierarchical structure. |
| The <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/StructureDiffViewer.html"><b>StructureDiffViewer</b></a> |
| performs the compare on the resulting structure and displays the result as a tree.</p> |
| |
| |
| <p>You designate a structure creator for your plug-in using the <a href="../reference/extension-points/org_eclipse_compare_structureCreators.html"><b>org.eclipse.compare.structureCreators</b></a> |
| extension.</p> |
| |
| |
| <h3>Other hierarchical structure viewers</h3> |
| |
| |
| <p>In some cases, the tree-based <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/StructureDiffViewer.html"><b>StructureDiffViewer</b></a> |
| may not be appropriate for your plug-in. The <a href="../reference/extension-points/org_eclipse_compare_structureMergeViewers.html"><b>org.eclipse.compare.structureMergeViewers</b></a> |
| extension point allows you to define your own implementation for a structure |
| merge viewer. Utility classes are provided to help you implement the |
| viewer.</p> |
| |
| |
| <h4> |
| Differencer </h4> |
| |
| |
| <p> |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/Differencer.html"><b>Differencer</b></a> |
| is a differencing engine for hierarchically |
| structured data. It takes two or three inputs and performs a two-way or |
| three-way compare on them.</p> |
| |
| |
| <p> |
| |
| If the input elements to the differencing engine implement the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureComparator.html"><b>IStructureComparator</b></a> |
| interface, the engine recursively applies itself to the children of |
| the input element. Leaf elements must implement the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/IStreamContentAccessor.html"><b>IStreamContentAccessor</b></a> |
| interface so that the differencer can perform a byte wise comparison on their contents.<p>There |
| are several good examples of differencers included in the platform |
| implementation: |
| <ul> |
| <li> |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/ResourceNode.html"><b>ResourceNode</b></a> |
| implements both interfaces |
| (and more) for platform workspace resources |
| (<a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/core/resources/IResource.html"><b>org.eclipse.core.resources.IResource</b></a>).</li> |
| <li> |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DocumentRangeNode.html"><b>DocumentRangeNode</b></a> |
| is used to compare hierarchical structures |
| that are superimposed on a document. Nodes and leaves correspond to ranges in a document |
| (<a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/contentmergeviewer/IDocumentRange.html"><b>IDocumentRange</b></a>). |
| Typically, <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DocumentRangeNode.html"><b>DocumentRangeNode</b></a>s |
| are created while parsing a document and they represent |
| the semantic entities of the document (e.g. a Java class, method or field). |
| The two subclasses <b>JavaNode</b> (in <b>org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui.compare</b>) |
| and <b>PropertyNode</b> (in <b>org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui.compare</b>) are good examples for this.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p> |
| |
| By default the differencing engine returns the result of the compare operation |
| as a tree of |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffNode.html"><b>DiffNode</b></a> |
| objects. A |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffNode.html"><b>DiffNode</b></a> |
| describes the changes among two or three inputs. The type of result nodes |
| can be changed by overriding |
| a single method of the engine. |
| <h4> |
| |
| Difference Viewers</h4> |
| <p> |
| |
| A tree of |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffNode.html"><b>DiffNode</b></a>s |
| can be displayed in a |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffTreeViewer.html"><b>DiffTreeViewer</b></a>. |
| The |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffTreeViewer.html"><b>DiffTreeViewer</b></a> |
| requires that inner nodes of the tree implement |
| the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IDiffContainer.html"><b>IDiffContainer</b></a> |
| interface and leaves implement the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IDiffElement.html"><b>IDiffElement</b></a> |
| interface. |
| <p> |
| |
| The typical steps to compare hierarchically structured data and to display |
| the differences are as follows: |
| <ol> |
| <li> |
| Map the input data into a tree of objects implementing both the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureComparator.html"><b>IStructureComparator</b></a> |
| and |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/IStreamContentAccessor.html"><b>IStreamContentAccessor</b></a> |
| interfaces</li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Perform the compare operation by means of the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/Differencer.html"><b>Differencer</b></a></li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Feed the differencing result into the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffTreeViewer.html"><b>DiffTreeViewer</b></a></li> |
| |
| </ol> |
| |
| The |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/StructureDiffViewer.html"><b>StructureDiffViewer</b></a> |
| is a specialized |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/DiffTreeViewer.html"><b>DiffTreeViewer</b></a> |
| that automates the three steps from above. It takes a single input object |
| of type |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/ICompareInput.html"><b>ICompareInput</b></a> |
| from which it retrieves the two or three |
| input elements to compare. It uses an |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureCreator.html"><b>IStructureCreator</b></a> |
| to extract a tree containing <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureComparator.html"><b>IStructureComparator</b></a> |
| and |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/IStreamContentAccessor.html"><b>IStreamContentAccessor</b></a> |
| objects from them. These trees are then compared with the differencing engine and |
| the result is displayed in the tree viewer. |
| <p> |
| |
| The |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/ZipFileStructureCreator.html"><b>ZipFileStructureCreator</b></a> |
| is an implementation of the |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureCreator.html"><b>IStructureCreator</b></a> |
| interface and makes the contents of a zip archive available as a |
| hierarchical structure of |
| <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/IStructureComparator.html"><b>IStructureComparator</b></a>s |
| which can be easily compared |
| by the differencing engine |
| (<a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/compare/structuremergeviewer/Differencer.html"><b>Differencer</b></a>). |
| It is a good example for how to make structured files available to the hierarchical |
| compare functionality of the compare plug-in. |
| |
| |
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