10,000 document()'s

I need advice on how to tackle this problem: I've got a file that contains a
list of about 10,000 other files, and I want to process the list so as to
add a wordcount for each of the external files. Something like this:

Input:

<files>
	<file>
		<filename>/path/to/file/2844942.xml</filename
	<file>
	<file> .... </file>
<files>

Output:

<files>
	<file>
		<filename>/path/to/file/2844942.xml</filename
		<wordcount>2938</wordcount>
	<file>
	<file> ....	</file>
<files>

The obvious approach is to use a for-each loop that includes a variable that
opens the external file using a document() call. The problem is that the
process inevitably runs out of memory, both with Saxon and Xalan. It seems
that the variables are passing out of scope and being destroyed as they
should, but I gather from a posting by Michael Kay
(http://www.biglist.com/lists/xsl-list/archives/200212/msg00507.html) that
all of those document() source trees are remaining in memory throughout the
transformation, adding up to megabytes of data.

Can anyone suggest a strategy? The process doesn't have to be fast, it just
has to finish.

Peter Binkley
Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian
Information Technology Services
4-30 Cameron Library
University of Alberta Libraries
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6G 2J8
Phone: (780) 492-3743
Fax: (780) 492-9243
e-mail: peter.binkley@xxxxxxxxxxx




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