1. A computer-implemented method for comparing the metadata of objects, comprising the steps of: receiving a first SXML document that is a representation of metadata of a first object, and a second SXML document that is a representation of metadata of a second object, wherein the documents can be described as a tree of nodes where each node is an XML construct; comparing a root node of the first and second documents; comparing child nodes of the first and second documents, until all nodes of both documents have been compared; generating a SXML difference document showing the differences between the first and second documents.