Merge Automation for Configuration Deployment Tool

Abstract

Abstract There was a need for a solution to solve invalid merge conflicts. The configuration deployment tool was the root cause of these conflicts due to different integrations with the system. This sole issue caused many difficulties and a desire for a solution. One solution to this issue is provided in this paper. The task was to research the conflicting files generated by the configuration deployment tool and to find a solution or create one if possible. Thus, the objective was to find out if the mentioned issues could be solved. The implementation method included XML and Java language as well as three different frameworks. The used frameworks were JGit, DOM, and XPath. JGit provided the base for creating the basic Git functionalities. DOM provided the functions to manipulate the XML files and XPath provided the functions to advanced search functionalities. The study resulted in two separate Jar files which hold the created codes. The first Jar file holds the XML parsing, sorting, formatting and whitespace removal codes. The second jar file holds the codes for the JGit implementation that provided the Git functionalities. The outcome of the created program was successful. The invalid merge conflicts caused by the random XML file element orders, and white space values were solved by the created codes. However, the valid merge conflicts are not handled automatically since they are error prone to changes.