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RE: why exsl:node-set() is so slow

2004-01-16 13:22:05
I'm certainly a little surprised by this result. The transformations are
fairly simple, so I guess that if it's taking 150 seconds then the data
files must be quite large, which is presumably why they are not
included? I expect it boils down to a memory issue: temporary trees,
with most implementations, are going to be held in memory, while final
result trees are not.


Michael Kay

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com 
[mailto:owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of 
David Tolpin
Sent: 16 January 2004 17:51
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: [xsl] why exsl:node-set() is so slow


Hi,

I wrote a chain of 4 stylesheets; the chain takes an XML file 
an produces another one through 4 transformations. It is 
reasonaly fast, with an XSLT processor invoked from the 
command-line for each step (a shell script aids in it).

Recently, I discovered exsl:node-set(), the function that 
takes the result of one transformation and converts it to a 
node set, so that the transformations can be chained within 
one invocation of the transformation engine, not stepwise.

I have gladly re-implemented the chain with use 
exsl:node-set() in hope that time spent on the slow start-up 
of Java Machine will be saved. However, all XSLT engines I 
have tested  have given me considerable lower performance 
than with four invocation, 3 to 5 times slower. What's wrong 
with exsl:node-set()?

SAXON, for example, takes 150 seconds instead of apprx 50 to 
process the same data with calls to exsl:node-set() instead 
of command-line invocations of the same processor for each of 
the four steps. jd.xslt is even slower.

The only notorious exception is xsltrpoc. It is much faster 
with exsl:node-set() than without. The only drawback is that 
xsltproc produces absolutely wrong and unusable result when 
exsl:node-set() is employed.

What's wrong with exsl:node-set()? 

David Tolpin
PS: the stylesheets are at 
http://ftp.davidashen.net/incelim/rng-incelim-> 1.0.zip

 
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