How to review InstallShield ism files in code review

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We recently implemented mandatory reviews (Helix Swarm) for the files that are checked into our source control (Helix Perforce). For now this also applies to files that are tool generated, InstallShield .ism files in particular. Since they are text files, a classic diff can be reviewed. The quality of such a review of course is poor, because the files are not intended to be human-readable. An alternative is to open the files in the InstallShield editor, but only few people in my team have the needed license which prooves to be a significant bottleneck in review speed.

Because of the aforementioned problems we are discussing to abolish reviews for InstallShield alltogether. I'd like to know if there is a feasable way to review InstallShield files, so that two people can have a look at changes in the installation routine.

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installshieldpull-request
If your .ism files are plain text saved instead of binary, I suppose you can use an XML parser - Cid
Hmm, this would at least remove all the visual clutter. I'm not sure whether this will help the reader to know whether the changes to the file are valid. - TippsyLizard
I'd point to the InstallShield MSI Diff tool for this purpose, but I think it only works on binary ISM files. And it's still table-level, so it's only slightly more readable than the XML. And I forget if the licensing terms of it are friendly enough for what you want. In practice, unless your whole team is expert enough at installations, it's gonna be really hard for them to review ISM changes regardless. - Michael Urman

2 Answers

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For now we have decided to just do simple plausibility checks. Compare what is described in the pull request with what information that can be easily grasped from the presented diff of the XML file.

Example:

Descripion: Add/Update Library xy

Check if added/changed/deleted lines are containing the library name and possibly version. If lines of seemingly irrelevant files changed, it's a reason to report a possible defect.

This may not be a perfect quality control of what the setup will finally do, but at least we can catch obvious mistakes early on, without the need for further tooling.

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You can add 'MsiDiff.exe' as diff application by extension in Perforce to review InstallShield ism files.

MsiDiff.exe can be found in [IS-INSTALLDIR]\System.

Here is how you can add it in Perforce: Perforce diff application by extension