How can I compare pages in different spaces?
Asked by Theresa Adams:

We are using confluence for documentation and followed the Atlassian documentation scheme.

But, when a tester is verifying the documentation, they would like to be able to compare a page from one version to the same page in another version. Each version is in its own space.

Has anyone done this kind of comparison?


Answers:
author: SarahA
body: Hallo Theresa

One workaround would be to create a temporary space C, then use the Confluence CLI to do this:

* Copy all the pages from Product A V1 to the temporary space C.
* Copy all the pages from Product A V2 to the same temporary space C. This action will update any existing pages that have the same name as those being copied.

Then you can use the normal version comparison for each page, to see what's different between V1 and V2.

Here's the documentation for the Confluence CLI - see the "copyPage" action:

<https://bobswift.atlassian.net/wiki/display/CSOAP/Documentation>

And here is the introductory page:

<https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/org.swift.confluence.cli>

Note that there's a Confluence plugin for the CLI too. Bob Swift is the expert. :)

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Sarah


author: Ren? Kjellerup
body: you can accomplish this with python, if you are used to reading the output from the posix diff command:

```
#!/usr/bin/env pythonimport difflib
import systry:    from xmlrpc.client import ServerProxy    from xmlrpc.client import Faultexcept:    from xmlrpclib import ServerProxy    from xmlrpclib import Faultdef get_page(page_id,             confluence_url='https://<confluence_domain>',             confluence_login='<username>',             confluence_password='<password>'):    client = ServerProxy(confluence_url+"/rpc/xmlrpc", verbose=0)    try:        auth_token = client.confluence2.login(confluence_login,                                              confluence_password)    except:        print("Can't login to confluence")        return []    try:        # getting confluence page        page = client.confluence2.getPage(auth_token, page_id)    except Fault as e:        print(e.faultString)        return []    return page['content'].split('\n')if len(sys.argv) < 3:
    print("usage:" + sys.argv[0] + " page_id_1 page_id_2")for line in difflib.unified_diff(get_page(sys.argv[1]), get_page(sys.argv[2]), fromfile='pageID='+sys.argv[1], tofile='pageID='+sys.argv[2]):    print(line[:-1])
```

this little script could help you


author: Peter Kahn
body: I use Bob swifts API embedded in a groovy/gradle plugin. You'd need to adapt this and at present it doesn't provide pretty unified diffs. I figure I'll use Daisey Diff for that.

Controller

```
class ConfluenceController extends TrustStoreService {    def user?def url?def password?ConfluenceSoapService service // soap service?String authToken // login auth token?public static logger = LogFactory.getLog(ConfluenceController)    public static final String permissionsTypeView = "View"?public static final String permissionsTypeEdit = "Edit"?public ConfluenceController( String serverUrl, String username, String passwd) {        url = serverUrl        user = username        password = passwd}...ConfluenceSoapService getService() {    if (! service) {        def serviceLocator = new ConfluenceSoapServiceServiceLocator()        serviceLocator.setConfluenceserviceV2EndpointAddress(soapUrl())        serviceLocator.setMaintainSession(true)        service = (ConfluenceSoapService) serviceLocator.getConfluenceserviceV2()    }    return service}String getAuthToken() {    if (! authToken) {        checkTrustStore()        logger.info("Login Attempt: ${user} @ ${url} :: ${password.size()}")        authToken = getService().login(user, password)    }    return authToken}...RemotePageSummary[] getPages(def space) {    return getService().getPages(getAuthToken(),space)}..RemotePage getPage(def space, def title) {    return getService().getPage(getAuthToken(), space, title)}
```

Compare Space Task

```
/** * Compares pages within two spaces, reporting on differences * Created by pkahn on 8/11/14. */package com.attivio.releng.gradle.tasks.wikiimport com.attivio.releng.confluence.ConfluenceControllerimport com.attivio.releng.confluence.SpaceComparisonToolimport com.attivio.releng.gradle.tasks.AttivioTaskimport com.attivio.releng.gradle.tasks.WikiTaskTraitimport org.gradle.api.GradleExceptionimport org.gradle.api.tasks.Inputimport org.gradle.api.tasks.TaskActionpublic class AttivioCompareConfluenceSpacesTask extends AttivioTask implements WikiTaskTrait {    @Input?String spaceKeyA?@Input?String spaceKeyB?@TaskAction?void compareSpaces() {        boolean hasError = false?ConfluenceController controller = getConfluenceController()        SpaceComparisonTool comparisonTool = new SpaceComparisonTool(controller)        logger.lifecycle("Comparing Spaces from ${spaceKeyA} to wiki(${spaceKeyB} : ${wikiUrl})")        logger.info("${controller}")        comparisonTool.compare(spaceKeyA, spaceKeyB)        if (comparisonTool.onlySpaceA.size()) {            hasError = true?logger.error("Pages only in ${spaceKeyA}\n\t" + comparisonTool.onlySpaceA.join("\n\t"))        }        if (comparisonTool.onlySpaceB.size()) {            hasError = true?logger.error("Pages only in ${spaceKeyB}\n\t" + comparisonTool.onlySpaceB.join("\n\t"))        }        if (comparisonTool.differences.size()) {            hasError = true?logger.error("Difference Report ${spaceKeyA} :: ${spaceKeyB}")            differences.each { entry -&gt;                logger.error("---------------------------------\n${entry.key}\n${entry.value}\n")            }        }        if (hasError) {            throw new GradleException("Differences Found: ${spaceKeyA} ${spaceKeyB}")        }    }}
```

Space Comparison tools

```
package com.attivio.releng.confluenceimport org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactoryimport org.swift.common.soap.confluence.RemotePageSummaryimport org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils/** * compare two spaces providing details on missing pages and differences * Created by pkahn on 8/13/2014. */class SpaceComparisonTool {    public static logger = LogFactory.getLog(SpaceComparisonTool)    ConfluenceController controller;    def onlySpaceA = []    def onlySpaceB = []    def differences = [:]    public SpaceComparisonTool(ConfluenceController controller) {        this.controller = controller    }    /** * Compare two spaces and report differences * @param spaceA * @param spaceB * @return?*/?@Override?String toString() {        return super.toString()    }    @Override?boolean equals(Object obj) {        return super.equals(obj)    }    /** * Execute comparison * @param spaceA * @param spaceB */?public void compare(String spaceA, String spaceB) {        // Page Lists?logger.info("Loading Pages ${spaceA}")        def pagesA = controller.getPages(spaceA)        logger.info("Found: ${spaceA} ${pagesA.size()} pages")        logger.info("Loading Pages ${spaceB}")        def pagesB = controller.getPages(spaceB)        logger.info("Found: ${spaceB} ${pagesB.size()} pages")        // Ids?def idsA = []        def idsB = []        pagesA.each { RemotePageSummary page -&gt;            idsA &lt;&lt; page.getTitle()        }        pagesB.each { RemotePageSummary page -&gt;            idsB &lt;&lt; page.getTitle()        }        // Missing Pages?onlySpaceA = getListDifferences(idsA, idsB)        onlySpaceB = getListDifferences(idsB, idsA)        if (onlySpaceA.size() &gt; 0) {            logger.error("Pages Only In ${spaceA}\n\t" + onlySpaceA.join("\n\t"))        }        if (onlySpaceB.size() &gt; 0) {            logger.error("Pages Only In ${spaceB}\n\t" + onlySpaceB.join("\n\t"))        }        // Compare Common Pages?idsA.each { def id -&gt;            def pageA = controller.getPage(spaceA, id)            def pageB = null try {                pageB = controller.getPage(spaceB, id)            } catch (Exception e) {                // ignore as we already reported missing?logger.debug("Missing Page. ${e.getMessage()}")            }            if ( pageB != null) {                String contentA = pageA.content.toString()                String contentb = pageB.content.toString()                if (! contentA.equals(contentb)) {                    def comparison = StringUtils.difference(contentA, contentb)                    differences[id] = comparison.toString()                }            }        }        if (differences.size()) {            logger.error("Difference Report ${spaceA} :: ${spaceB}")            differences.each { entry -&gt;                logger.error("---------------------------------\n${entry.key}\n${entry.value}")            }        }    }    private def getListDifferences(def listA, def listB) {        def setA = listA.toSet()        def setB = listB.toSet()        setA.removeAll(setB)        return setA    }}
```

```
class ConfluenceController extends TrustStoreService {
    def user
 def url
 def password
 ConfluenceSoapService service // soap service
 String authToken // login auth token

 public static logger = LogFactory.getLog(ConfluenceController)

    public static final String permissionsTypeView = "View"
 public static final String permissionsTypeEdit = "Edit"

 public ConfluenceController( String serverUrl, String username, String passwd) {
        url = serverUrl
        user = username
        password = passwd

    }
```


author: Angela Yang
body: Just want to check if any improvements have been done in Confluence since 2012? I'm after exactly the same thing as Theresa.

A bit of background for why such a feature is needed:

* a document (confluence page) exists in different versions, living under different spaces
* after a doc change is approved for the latest version, the changes sometimes need to be copied to a previous version
* there is no simple way of copying doc (confluence page) changes from one page to another so manual doc change to an earlier version is required (this is tedious when there are many areas in the doc that changed) - this could be a good feature to add to Confluence
* after the previous version doc is manually changed, I want to check how the 2 versions of docs compare and if I have correctly copied over all the required changes

Thanks


author: AlysonA
body: Theresa,

Thanks for clarifying. I'm afraid there isn't a functionality for this, you can perhaps open both pages in different tabs and compare them, but I'm aware this is not practical at all.

As for the script, this is something that would fit in a feature request that you can raise in <https://jira.atlassian.com> so we can consider including it in the future.

Those are my thoughts, let's see if someone else has more insights on this.

Cheers!


author: AlysonA
body: Hi Theresa,

Actually you can compare different page versions since Confluence tracks histories of changes to pages by maintaining a version of the page each time it is modified.

You just have to go to **Tools** \> **Page History**and use the Compare with Current function.

Hope that's what you're looking for.

Cheers!

comments: author: Theresa Adams
body: Hi Alyson, no, unfortunately this isn't what I need.

We have a space for Product A V1 - with a page called "Log Format"

and a space for Product A V2 - with a page called "Log Format"

I want to compare those two.

Or better yet, a script that would compare every page in the hierarchy of Product A V1 with the same page in the hierarchy of Product A V2.