How to use Micronaut comparison sample

GroupDocs.Comparison is the most flexible, powerful and easy to use Java library that was created to develop document comparison applications in Java environment. Micronaut is a modern, jvm-based, full-stack framework for building modular, easily testable microservice and serverless applications. Combining them together you can easily develop powerful and modern Java based application for comparing Word and Pdf documents, Photos and Images, PowerPoint presentations, AutoCad drawings, XML, MSG, JSON, TXT files and much more supported file formats. In the article you will read about sample comparison application, which sources are completely free and available on GitHub page

Used technologies

  1. Kotlin - A modern programming language that makes developers happier. Fully compatible with Java libraries.
  2. Micronaut - JVM-based framework for building lightweight, modular applications.
  3. GroupDocs.Comparison API - the most flexible and modern comparison library for Java, Kotlin and .NET
  4. Thymeleaf - modern server-side Java template engine for both web and standalone environments.

Application architecture description

  • config - Classes which are used to map configuration of the application
  • manager - Helpers, for example manager to work with files paths
  • model - Requests and responses model classes
  • modules - Controllers and their beans
  • usecase - business logic

Extra files

In sources:

  • Application.kt - entry point of the application
  • Defaults.kt - properties which are used as default values for configuration options

In resources:

  • application.conf - configuration of the application
  • logback.xml - logging system configuration

Building and running the application

Using IDE

Application entry point is in a file Application.kt. Function main must be run in order to start the application. It can be done with a help of any IDE.

Using command line

You can easily run the sample using CLI executing next command

The application will be run using gradle wrapper, that is in gradle directory. Open http://localhost:8080/comparer in your favourite web browser to see the UI.

Creating distribution archive is as easy as running the application:

After that, go to .\build\distributions\ directory and you will find next distribution files:

  • comparison-micronaut-22.11.tar
  • comparison-micronaut-22.11.zip

Both of them has bin directory with scripts to run the app and lib directory that contains all application libraries

Key places inside the application

Controllers and beans

Inside mudules package are sub packages. Each of them handles single request from client. Lets review compare sub package as an example.

The package has two files:

  1. CompareController.kt - it contains class, that caches request to /compare url

    Goals of the class is to catch request, extract parameters, call method of a bean and return response object that was created by the bean

  2. CompareBean.kt - it uses usecases and passed arguments to create response object. First thing the bean does is checking that request paths are inside allowed directories. The bean uses PathManager to check it

    The second thing is checking that requested files are supported by the sample. The bean uses special usecase: AreFilesSupportedUseCase

    The third step is creating path to the file, in which the result document will be saved

    The sample uses temporary files to be more understandable. It is easy to modify the sample to use IO streams instead. Path to the temporary directory can be configured in application.conf. By default, system directory is used

    In the next step CompareDocumentsUseCase is used to compare source and target documents and to save result file. It returns list of changes, which will be sent to the client.

    One more important step is to get input streams of pages in result document using RetrieveLocalFilePagesStreamUseCase. These pages will be displayed on the client side.

    And the final step is mapping Comparison ChangeInfo objects, which represents each change in the document into response models to be send to the client.

Understanding usecases

Usecase is a class that has only one goal to do. Usecases must be easy for testing and must not have any state. In the sample, each usecase is annotated using @Bean annotation. It means that they will be injected into controllers and other beans with a help of embedded into Micronaut Framework mechanism. The same way will be resolved arguments of usecases constructors.

Lets overview CompareDocumentsUseCase as an example:

In the usecase operator invoke is overridden to make it possible to use usecase object like a function. The main goal of the usecase is to compare source and target documents saving the result document.

Parameters of the usecase are source document, target document and output stream. It compares documents using GroupDocs.Comparison library and saves the result to the provided stream. Optionally, it takes passwords for each document.

The Comparison library is used to compare documents in the sample. It is very easy to use, so you can compare any documents just in few lines of code:

  1. Instantiate Comparer object passing source document path or stream. Alternatively you can configure Comparer using LoadOptions to interpret the first argument as a source text for comparison process. Also it has property to pass directories with fonts, specific for the document. Optionally you can provide password for the source document with a special property of LoadOptions object. Comparer implements Java Closeable interface, so it is recommended to use try-with-resources working with it.

  2. Using add method of comparer provide second document or text for comparing. To the method can be passed the same LoadOptions parameter with all its properties. Moreover, GroupDocs.Comparison API supports multi-document comparison. In order to use it, just add more target documents using add method of the comparer.

  3. The last thing you need to do, is to call compare method to start comparing. It takes CompareOptions object as a second argument for configuring the process. Here are shown just a few capabilities of the library. In the code above, the comparer is configured to show deleted content, to detect styles changes and to calculate coordinates of each change. Much more options are available to be configured. For example, you can enable generating summary page, change comparison sensitivity level, disable some types of changes, configure styles that will be used to highlight changes and much more. Read about them in the documentation. Method comparer.getChanges() is used at the end of the apply block to get list of changes.

Get a Free API License

Some of comparison capabilities, as sensitivity of comparison, generating summary page and so on, are available only with license. You can get a free temporary license to use the API without evaluation limitations.

Free Online App

You can check comparison algorithm with a help of powerful free applications. Try to compare your DOC or DOCX, XLS or XLSX, PPT or PPTX, PDF, EML, EMLX, MSG, DWG, DXF and other documents with free to use online GroupDocs Comparison Application.

See also