Diff for OpenDocument spreadsheets

[NoOp]

On 09/20/2011 09:59 AM, Loïc Grenié wrote:
> 2011/9/20 NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net>:
>> On 09/20/2011 01:50 AM, Loïc Grenié wrote:
>>>     Hi,
>>>
>>>     I've two spreadsheets which are very similar. I'd like to know
>>> what the differences
>>>   are. Is there a tool similar to "diff" for OpenDocument spreadsheets ?
>> ...
>> They are zip files. You can extract them and then compare the .xml files.
> 
>     Of course. The problem is that it's difficult to understand where the
>   changes took place (which sheet(s), which cell(s)). I'd like to have a
>   list, similar to what diff gives:
> 
> --- question.ods
> +++ answer.ods
> @@-alpha.C1 +alpha.C1
> -=SOLVE(Universal.problem->life&&universe&&everything)
> +42
> 
>    (maybe not exactly that, but something similar). In that case the
>   diff tells me that the two spreadsheets differ in sheet alpha, cell C1,
>   that the first has a formula
>   =SOLVE(Universal.problem->life&&universe&&everything) and the
>   second a number 42.

I'm not familiar enough with 'diff' to help there. However one way to
check the differences is to use meld and then compare the content.xml of
each. For example; I did a simple .ods with only the number 1 in the
first cell, saved it, changed the number to 2 and saved that as a
different spreadsheet. I then extraced both and used meld to compare
them side-by-side. Meld highlights the differences and I can see that in
the first:

<table:table-cell office:value-type="float" office:value="1

and in the second:

<table:table-cell office:value-type="float" office:value="2"

Not as eloquent as diff, but might be worth a try.