Using P4Merge to merge XML

Question

My (large) company uses Perforce for most of their source control. (I can't escape this.)

A coworker and I often have to work on the same XML-based file at the same time. When it comes time to merge our changes, P4Merge is often not as smart as I'd like. For example, consider this super-simple XML file and two colliding variations:

As shown, P4Merge is not XML-aware, and keeps only one copy of the common </b>.

How do you either modify the Perforce tool itself to support smarter XML merges, or how could you modify the Perforce toolchain to use a smarter merge tool as part of the Resolve process?

Answer 1

There's a tool called Project:Merge that might do a better job of handling XML content, and it integrates with Perforce:

http://www.projectmerge.com/help/en/integratep4v.php

Update: Project:Merge has been renamed to Oso XML Merge and updated since this post was made. The most recent version can be found here.

Answer 2

Assuming that you're using P4V / P4Win, you can change the default diff and merge tools from the Perforce tools to the ones that you prefer. See this page from the P4V manual.