RE: [xsl] String test pro's /con's

["Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> To test if an element contains data (any string) what is the 
> difference/benefits/cons?? to either of the following:  
> 
> <xsl:if test="string-length(./myelement)> 0 )
> 
> or 
> 
> <xsl:if test="not(./myelement='')">
> 
Use the second. string-length() can be an expensive operation because of
the need to scan the string looking for Unicode surrogate pairs. But of
course, performance questions are always processor-dependent. Saxon
optimizes the first expression to avoid scanning the string; other
processors may have ways of storing strings that make it faster to look
for surrogate pairs.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


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