XML File Changes View

The XML File Changes view is where you add references for nodes and node sets of XML files that you want to change at run time. The XML files can be part of your installation, or they can be files that are already present on target systems.

Two key parts of this view are the View Filter (a list of the project’s features and components) and the XML Files explorer (a tree view):

The View Filter enables you to filter data by feature or component.

The XML Files explorer is where you add references to XML files and XML data that you want to create, modify, or remove at run time. Each node represents an XPath expression that your installation carries out at run time to select existing nodes or node sets in an XML file.

The XML File Changes view is not designed to list a node for every node in an XML file. To improve performance, the XML File Changes view should show only the settings that differ from the base XML file:

If the XML file that you are modifying is part of your installation, the XML File Changes view should list only the nodes and node sets that should be added, changed, or deleted after the XML file is installed at run time.

If the XML file that you are modifying is a file that is already present on the target system, the XML File Changes view should list only the nodes that need to be added, changed, or deleted at run time.

Therefore, when you are importing a file, import only the nodes in the XML file that you want to modify at run time.

Note that the XML File Changes view does not enable you to specify the order in which new elements should be listed in the XML file. Therefore, importing only the nodes that you want to modify at run time helps to avoid issues that may occur if your product requires that the elements be listed in a particular order.

The XML File Changes view also displays different tabs in the right pane, depending on what is selected in the XML Files explorer. For reference information about each of the settings on these tabs, see the following:

To learn more about how to use the XML Files Changes view and configure XML file changes, see Modifying XML Files.