japicmp is a tool to compare two versions of a jar archive:
java -jar japicmp-0.0.2.jar -n new-version.jar -o old-version.jar
It can also be used as a library:
JarArchiveComparator jarArchiveComparator = new JarArchiveComparator();
List<JApiClass> jApiClasses = jarArchiveComparator.compare(oldArchive, newArchive);
##Motivation##
Every time you make a new release of a library or a product, you have to tell your clients or customers what has changed in comparison to the last release. Without the appropriate tooling, this task is tedious and error-prone. This tool/library helps you to determine the differences between the java class files that are contained in the two jar archives. In contrast to other libraries/tools, this library does not use the Java Reflection API to compute the differences, as the usage of the Reflection API makes it necessary to include all classes the jar archive under investigation depends on are available on the classpath. To prevent the inclusion of all dependent libraries, which can be a lot of work for bigger applications, this library makes use of the javassist library to inspect the class files. This way you only have to provide the two jar archives on the command line, that's it.
##Features##
- Comparison of two jar archives without the need to add all of their dependencies to the classpath.
- Differences are printed on the command line in a simple diff format.
- Differences can optionally be printed to an xml file. This can be transformed to an HTML file using XSLT.
- Per default only public classes and class members are compared. If necessary, the access modifier of the classes and class members to be compared can be set to package, protected or private.
- Per default classes from all packages are compared. If necessary, certain packages can be excluded or only specific packages can be included.
##Usage##
The tool has a set of CLI parameters that are described in the following:
-h Prints this help.
-o <pathToOldVersionJar> Provides the path to the old version of the jar.
-n <pathToNewVersionJar> Provides the path to the new version of the jar.
-x <pathToXmlOutputFile> Provides the path to the xml output file. If not given, stdout is used.
-a <accessModifier> Sets the access modifier level (public, package, protected, private), which should be used.
-i <packagesToInclude> Comma separated list of package names to include, * can be used as wildcard.
-e <packagesToExclude> Comma separated list of package names to exclude, * can be used as wildcard.
-m Outputs only modified classes/methods. If not given, all classes and methods are printed.
###Example###
In the following you see the beginning of the xml output file after having computed the differences between the versions 4.0.1 and 4.2.3 of httpclient:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<japicmp newJar="D:\Programmierung\japicmp\github\japicmp\japicmp\httpclient-4.2.3.jar" oldJar="D:\Programmierung\japicmp\github\japicmp\japicmp\httpclient-4.0.1.jar">
<class accessModifierNew="n.a." accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="REMOVED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.annotation.GuardedBy" type="ANNOTATION">
<method accessModifierNew="n.a." accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="REMOVED" name="value" returnType="java.lang.String"/>
</class>
<class accessModifierNew="n.a." accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="REMOVED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.annotation.Immutable" type="ANNOTATION"/>
<class accessModifierNew="n.a." accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="REMOVED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.annotation.NotThreadSafe" type="ANNOTATION"/>
<class accessModifierNew="n.a." accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="REMOVED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.annotation.ThreadSafe" type="ANNOTATION"/>
<class accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="UNCHANGED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.auth.AUTH" type="CLASS"/>
<class accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="PUBLIC" changeStatus="UNCHANGED" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.auth.AuthenticationException" type="CLASS"/>
<class accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.auth.AuthOption" type="CLASS">
<method accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" name="getAuthScheme" returnType="org.apache.http.auth.AuthScheme"/>
<method accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" name="getCredentials" returnType="org.apache.http.auth.Credentials"/>
<method accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" name="toString" returnType="java.lang.String"/>
</class>
<class accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" fullyQualifiedName="org.apache.http.auth.AuthProtocolState" type="ENUM">
<method accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" name="valueOf" returnType="org.apache.http.auth.AuthProtocolState">
<parameter type="java.lang.String"/>
</method>
<method accessModifierNew="PUBLIC" accessModifierOld="n.a." changeStatus="NEW" name="values" returnType="org.apache.http.auth.AuthProtocolState[]"/>
</class>
...
The differences between the two Java APIs are also printed on the command line for a quick overview:
--- REMOVED ANNOTATION org.apache.http.annotation.GuardedBy
--- REMOVED METHOD value()
--- REMOVED ANNOTATION org.apache.http.annotation.Immutable
--- REMOVED ANNOTATION org.apache.http.annotation.NotThreadSafe
--- REMOVED ANNOTATION org.apache.http.annotation.ThreadSafe
=== UNCHANGED CLASS org.apache.http.auth.AUTH
=== UNCHANGED CLASS org.apache.http.auth.AuthenticationException
+++ NEW CLASS org.apache.http.auth.AuthOption
+++ NEW METHOD getAuthScheme()
+++ NEW METHOD getCredentials()
+++ NEW METHOD toString()
+++ NEW ENUM org.apache.http.auth.AuthProtocolState
+++ NEW METHOD valueOf(java.lang.String)
+++ NEW METHOD values()
##Downloads##
The following releases are available:
##Development##