1. A method for automatically merging data contained in a first XML document and data contained in a second XML document, the method comprising: performing a set of comparisons, each comparison of the set of comparisons comparing an element of a set of elements of the first XML document with an element of a set of elements of the second XML document; wherein the comparison is based on at least one merge attribute, the at least one merge attribute being associated with the elements of the set of elements of the first XML document and the second XML document; wherein each comparison involves comparing the value of the at least one merge attribute of the first XML document with that of the second XML document; determining from the set of comparisons, one or more conflicts in the first XML document and the second XML document; generating a merged XML document by resolving the one or more conflicts and identifying data from both the first XML document and the second XML document to be contained in the merged XML document.