Kettlediff

Diff library for git (or other version control systems or standalone) to view changes in Pentaho Data Integration and Pentaho Report Designer files.

Description

Kettlediff is a python tool that takes a .ktr- or a .kjb-file as input and outputs them in a way that they are easy to diff. Files from Pentaho Report designer are supported as well.

The original file will not be altered.

It will change the order of elements in the XML to be more static and counteract Kettle reorganizing them on save. Also, it will remove some values that some Kettle versions handle differently as implicit or explicit default values and might trigger git diff to see a change although there is no functional difference. For Report files, it will unzip them and list all their lines with the path of origin.

Usage

When diffing .ktr-, .kjb- and .prpt-files, git will apply kettlediff to both files you want to compare and looks for differences in the output. There differences in the files that originate from version differences and re-ordering of XML elements should be ignored and you should only see differences that functionally change the file. When in steps, the hunk header will show the name of the step written in the name tag to locate the changes easily.

The line numbers found by git diff won't match the lines in the files as the XML will be changed to keep steps, etc. in a diffable order.

Requirements

Kettlediff will run on python versions 3, but there is a python2-compatible release py2_1.0.0.

There are no external modules needed for it to run. However, if you have lxml installed on your machine, it will use that instead of the built-in xml module.

Setup

Add the following lines to your gitconfig file.
Linux: default path is ~/.gitconfig
Windows: default path is %HOMEPATH%/.gitconfig

[diff "kettle"]
        textconv = /path/to/this/kettlediff.py
        xfuncname = <name>(.*)</name>|<order>|<hops>
[diff "prpt"]
        textconv = /path/to/this/kettlediff.py
        xfuncname = .*name=.*

If you want to use kettlediff on all your repositories, you might want to add the reference to your profile settings. If you haven't already, add a path to your gitconfig, for example in your home directory:

[core]
        attributesfile = ~/.gitattributes

If the file does not exist create it and add the following lines.

*.ktr diff=kettle
*.kjb diff=kettle
*.prpt diff=prpt

If you want to use kettlediff on a single repository, add them instead to "/.git/info/attributes".

Now every time you call git diff on one of the above file types kettlediff will be automatically used.

Usage with other other tools

TortoiseGit

1. Open your TortoiseGit settings
2. Navigate to "Diff Viewer"
3. Click the "Advanced..."-Button
4. Add entry for each file extension:

• .prpt
• .ktr
• .kjb

5. Fill in cmd /K git diff --textconv %base %mine as "External Program"

This will open a command prompt with the git diff view.

TortoiseSVN

The tool will also work for TortoiseSVN. If you have git installed and properly set up, you can simply follow the instructions for TortoiseGit above. If no git is available, kettlediff provides a small git diff-like tool for that.

1. Open your TortoiseSVN settings
2. Navigate to "Diff Viewer"
3. Click the "Advanced..."-Button
4. Add entry for each file extension:

• .prpt
• .ktr
• .kjb

5. Fill in cmd /K python path/to/file.py %base %mine as "External Program"

This will give you a command prompt that shows you a git diff-like output powered by pythons difflib function "unified_diff".

Github Desktop

Should work out-of-the-box if gitconfig and gitattributes were set up as it uses the diff function provided by git.