Saxon-SA versus Xalan

[Michael Kay]

Are you talking XQuery or XSLT? Because Xalan is an XSLT processor, and this
is an XQuery list. (Saxon does both XSLT and XQuery).
 
You can of course run schema validation prior to transformation using a
schema processor that is entirely separate from the XSLT or XQuery engine.
(You can can then choose any schema validator, including Saxon-SA or Xerces,
and any transformation engine, including Saxon-B or Xalan). But this isn't
the same as running a schema-aware transformation or query. When you run a
schema-aware transformation or query, as well as ensuring that the input
document is valid against the schema, you also get additional benefits:
 
* compile-time checking of the query or transformation code against the
schema
 
* optimization of the query or transformation to take advantage of schema
knowledge
 
* polymorphic operations based on schema-defined types, for example sorting
dates as dates and numbers as numbers.
 
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
 
 


  _____  

From: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk [mailto:http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk] On Behalf
Of Roger Holmes
Sent: 25 October 2008 16:02
To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
Subject:  Saxon-SA versus Xalan


Hi, I am in the early stages of working with Saxon-B but was wondering as to
the added benefits of Saxon-SA's transformation with schema validation
versus Xalan with Xerces. 
My understanding is that Xalan provides support for Xerces to do XML
transformation and schema validation. 
 
My understanding also is that Saxon ultimately expands an Xquery string does
its conversion and at some stage hold its resultSet as XML nodes. Can these
XML nodes prior to output by Saxon-B be transformed and validated via Xalan
and Xerces ?
 
I  think I've answered my own question in a way, is the flaw in my logic
that validation with Xalan will only happen after a successful /
unsuccessful output of XML nodes whereas Saxon does it on the route to
generating XML ?
 
OR is the difference that the Saxon implementation simply offers far better
performance to make Xalan a consideration ?
 
 
Thanks,
Roger


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