Our team uses a GitLab repository to have a single recorded source for some of our FME Workbench workspaces that get deployed to our FME Flow server. Whenever we save the files locally and make a new commit, the diff tools comparing the git revisions can become noisy with extra line changes that weren’t actually changes made to the file by the user in FME Workbench. This is because data series in the XML contents of the .fmw file are input randomly and may input in a different order upon additional saves.
Child nodes in arrays under elements like <DATA_TYPES>, <GEOM_TYPES>, <CONNECTIONS>, and <BOOKMARKS> will fully rearrange their order in an inconsistent manner. This can happen if one entry is removed/added in the list and the workspace file is saved. This adds a lot of “diff” lines where changes didn’t occur when comparing two versions of the same .fmw file in any external git comparison tool.
Please add functionality to sort these series of nodes/values alphabetically by a name attribute so that they are saved to the .fmw file in a consistent manner that doesn’t change between saves.
