Patent ID: 7392243

Claim:
In a computing environment, a method comprising: accessing a hierarchically arranged data file containing hierarchically arranged data, the hierarchically arranged data including a plurality of data elements, at least some of the data elements containing one or more nested attribute name/value pairs; automatically modifying the accessed hierarchically arranged data file to configure the accessed hierarchically arranged data file for more efficient comparison to data from other versions of the hierarchically arranged data file, the accessed hierarchically arranged data file modified by adding a unique identifier to at least one of the data elements within the hierarchically arranged data of the hierarchically arranged data file, including: determining in a first determination that some, but not all, of the data elements of the hierarchically arranged data file are not to be localized; based on the first determination: omitting establishing a unique identifier for those data elements that are not to be localized; and omitting nesting a unique identifier attribute name/value pair within those data elements that are not to be localized; and determining in a second determination that some, but not all, of the data elements of the hierarchically arranged data file are to be localized; based on the second determination: establishing a corresponding unique identifier value for those data elements that are to be localized; and nesting a unique identifier attribute name/value pair within those data elements that are to be localized, the unique identifier attribute name/value pair including a name portion and a value portion, the name portion identifying the unique identifier attribute name/value pair as a unique identifier attribute for the data element and the value portion indicating that the value of unique identifier attribute is the corresponding established unique identifier value; and storing the modified data file, including any nested unique identifier attribute name/value pairs, for subsequent access so that any changes to the data file can be more efficiently detected when data from the modified data file is compared to data from another version of the data file.