Running multiple transformations in a pipeline is just fine, it helps to
keep the transformation stages modular. Try to chain them in a SAX
pipeline, however, rather than serializing and parsing between each
transformation step.

Michael Kay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Paul Tremblay
> Sent: 11 February 2004 07:51
> To: xsl-list
> Subject:  nodes or multiple runs?
> 
> 
> 
> I will be publishing a set of xslt stylesheets and want to 
> make them easy to use for everyone. My question is whether I 
> should chain several stylesheets together, or try to process 
> the original document with just one run, using temporary trees.
> 
> Right now, my transformation involves chaining together 
> stylesheets. One xslt stylesheet creates a document, and that 
> document is processed with an xslt stylesheet, and so on. 
> 
> This method requries that I create several temporary files. I 
> can write a python script makes the chaining together easy, 
> but then I have to contend with different processors. Saxon 
> will require a different processing command than Xalan. I 
> will have to write a routine for each processor, and that of 
> course gets pretty involved.
> 
> However, I was reading Michael Kay's book, and I realized 
> that I can actually create temporary trees instead of making 
> multiple runs. 
> 
> For example, I can group together all colors in the document 
> and store the result as a temporary tree in a variable. I can 
> then number the nodes in this temporary tree consecutively.
> 
> But not all processors can handle this method of using a 
> temporary tree. For example, xsltproc cannot. 
> 
> In addition, re-writing my stylesheets so that I can process 
> everything at once will take a lot of work. In fact, with my 
> level of skill it may not even be possible. The tricky part 
> is that I have to number nested lists according to attributes 
> in the original XML document. A list that is nested inside 
> another list may require that it inherit the number for its 
> parent, or it may require that it not. The numbering style 
> for the child list may be deciaml, but the numbering style 
> for the parent may be Roman. The top level of each list must 
> have a unique ID, and this ID must be part of an attribute 
> for the paragrphs. But children of lists must not have ids. 
> It is for this reason that I numbered all lists first, and 
> then on a subsequent run concatenated numbers from parent 
> lists when I needed to.
> 
> Is it okay to make a user process the document several times, 
> or should I try to make my xslt stylesheet a one run process?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Paul
> 
> -- 
> 
> ************************
> *Paul Tremblay         *
> *phthenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx*
> ************************
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list