Analyzing changes between Specification revisions

The XML Editor provides a service that makes it easy for a reader to identify which parts of a Specification have been changed between two revisions.

Information about the change of an element is displayed to the left of the element. Elements could have been added, deleted or changed. The position of an element could also have changed. If several changes overlap, the position of the label could be displaced downwards in the document.

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Analyzing changes between revisions

Changes between different Specification revisions is done by:

  • Open a Specification in the XML editor.
  • Select Changes in the Toolbar and choose a revision in the menu. The contents of the two revisions are analyzed and matched for differences.
  • Changes are displayed as labels in the left margin of the Specification.
  • Labels with an arrow show that additional information can be displayed.

Labels

There are four types of labels.

Added

The element is added to the later version.

Changed

The element is changed between the versions.

Moved

The element has been moved between versions. An element is considered as moved if the preceding element is different from the element in the previous version. The old sequence can be obtained by clicking the label.

Removed

An element in the former version has been removed in the later version. The user can display the element by clicking the label.

Limitations

Change analysis is done by comparing the contents of elements. If an element has changed substantially, the change may be labeled Added instead of Changed, and an additional Removed label has been inserted.

An element that is changed less than 1% is regarded as unchanged (no label is displayed). Text that is changed more than 1% but not more than 75% is regarded as Changed. Text elements that are changed more than 75% are regarded as new and gets the label Added. These thresholds cannot be modified.

Specifications who contain several elements with similar contents can cause confusion during analysis and label the elements wrong.

A Changed label can be displayed if a blank space was added or removed from an element.

The following elements are not analyzed for changes:

  • Images
  • The contents of tables
  • Requirement tags
  • The numbering of headings, tables and figures
  • Any Specification meta information, such as revision information, authors, title or subtitle

Related Topics

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