5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising, comparison of the child elements of the matching elements of the first XML document and the second XML document.
5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising, comparison of the child elements of the matching elements of the first XML document and the second XML document. 6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising: comparison of other attributes, and text content of the matching elements; determining based on the value of a replace flag, a selected element of the matching elements, when the attributes or text content or both of the matching elements are determined as unequal; and copying the attributes, and text content of the selected element to the merged XML document.