Ken Webb 2010-03-03T17:14:09Z
Various third-party tools can be used to compare Xholon tree structures. This can be useful:
Any Xholon application can write itself, or part of itself, out in the Newick tree format. The open-source TreeJuxtaposer can read one or more of these files, and graphically highlight the differences. The Newick format was created as "a way to represent graph-theoretical trees with edge lengths using parentheses and commas", but can be used to represent any Xholon or other hierarchical structure. TreeJuxtaposer "handles all kinds of trees, including phylogenetic trees, taxonomic trees, consensus trees, dendrograms from cluster hierarchies, and others".
As an example, the following image shows TreeJuxtaposer comparing two different versions of a Xholon application. It highlights the added and deleted nodes using a thick red line.
Other tools that can be used to compare Xholon trees include:
The following screen shot shows a comparison between two snapshots of the Xholon Life application, taken at different time steps during a single execution of the application. This comparison uses the compare feature that is built into Eclipse. The data is in the Newick format, but it could be in any of the many other output formats supported by Xholon.
The following shows Beyond Compare comparing the same two files.
