Foxmarks: Merge Algorithm

From Foxmarks Wiki

Here's the proposed algorithm for handling a merge of two disparate sets of bookmarks.

• Push the respective roots of the native and foreign sets onto the stack.

• While there's anything remaining on the stack:
  • pop the topmost element on the stack. This element contains resource id's for a native and foreign folder that we've decided are matches.
  • Construct a list of children in each of the foreign and native folders.
  • For each item in the foreign folder, try to match it against an item in the native folder. If unsuccessful, append the item (including its recursive children if it's a folder) to the native folder. If we do find a match:
    • If the match is a folder, append the matches to the stack.
    • Remove the item from the list of items in the native folder to prevent it from being the target of a match a second time.

Some details:

The definition of a match depends on the type of item involved:

• If the item is a Folder, a match depends on the folder name and description. Both must be identical to be a match.
• If the item is a Bookmark, a match depends on the URL. If the URL matches, they are a match. Any other of the following fields that don't match are added to the description field of the native item: name, description, keyword. The webpanel boolean remains as set in the native set.
• If the item is a Separator, a match depends on the name.

When we append an item to the native set:

• We check to see if it's already been dirtied. If not, we just do the append and set the dirty bit.
• If the dirty bit is already set, we first append a separator then perform the append.