Performance: attribute sets, named templates, entities, etc

[Alistair Hopkins <al...@berthengron.co.uk>]

I am using Xalan to build a website and the stylesheets are getting fairly 
big, as each stylesheet copes with quite a wide range of data 
elements.  They're still processing nice and fast once they are compiled to 
StylesheetRoot, but I'm not sure what the relative costs of various nice 
features are.

1/ Attribute sets.  Are these inserted into the element during compilation 
or processing?  Is there any reason not to use them everywhere (because 
they make html so easy)?

2/ Named templates.  I want to use named templates for little snippets of 
'stuff': for example, a 'compulsory field' marker, or a navigational 
image.  This lets me change my mind later.  Is the template inserted at 
compile or runtime?  What is the overhead of calling templates?

3/ Variables.  I use a lot of 'sub stylesheets' for different data 
entities, then call them from a master which has a variable declaring which 
servlet it is invoked by.  This lets me do 'loopback URLs' without worrying 
about what the current servlet is.  Is this costing me?