RE: main memory consumption using xalan

XSLT isn't really designed for independent compilation of modules. Bear in
mind that b.xsl might have references to variables, templates, etc that are
defined or overridden in the calling a.xsl module, so it's very hard to do
any useful compilation of b.xsl without having the importing module
available. In fact, b.xsl might not even be a valid stylesheet unless it is
imported into somewhere else.

Perhaps you should be achieving reuse through pipelining rather than through
include/import? If there are transformations that can be incorporated in
more than one pipeline then the memory they occupy can be shared.

However, most of the time in my experience, if you've got a memory problem
then it's caused by source documents, not by compiled stylesheets.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/