Re: [xsl] Measuring the complexity of XSLT stylesheets

Subject: Re: [xsl] Measuring the complexity of XSLT stylesheets
From: Sebastien Arbogast <sebastien.arbogast@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 11:37:59 -0500
Maybe you could try to bring the problem back to a question of
algorithm complexity. Because a XSLT stylesheet doesn't have any
complexity in itself : it's not code in itself because it's not
compiled or interpreted. The real program, where complexity really is
(in terms of code performance if that's what you mean), it's the XSLT
processor. So the first thing you have to do to evaluate complexity is
to choose one implementation of an XSLT processor (MSXML, Saxon,
Xalan, etc.). Then you can analyze the processing algorithm (for that
of course you need an open source processor) and make a model of each
type of XSLT element in terms of iterative processing instructions.
And as there are already some techniques to analyse complexity of
iterative algorithms, your model should give results.
It's just a general idea but it seems to be the most intuitive to me.

Regards
--
Sebastien ARBOGAST

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