XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

re: XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

b0b0b0b — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:38:23 GMT

Is this an apples to apples comparison? Are the java timings from a cold start, or a warm start? How do the timings differ if they are run from a warm server vm?

re: XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

xmlhacker — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:11:06 GMT

Very interesting post and results!

Question: Did you make any attempt to run the same tests with Saxon on .NET 8.7.3?

re: XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

mhkay — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:28:32 GMT

A good article.

To do Java applications justice you need to allow for warm-up time. Try running Saxon with the -t flag for timings, and the undocumented -9 flag to repeat the transform 9 times. The figures I get for the Chess stylesheet under Saxon 8.7.3 are in milliseconds:

741, 280, 261, 260, 251, 250, 260, 240, 250

The first run excludes the compile time of 681 ms. I don't know of course if the machine is comparable with the one you used. There's clearly some way still to go to catch up with the .NET 2.0 compiler, but the gap isn't as big as you portray. And it's not surprising that there should be a gap, since I've spent the last five years working on increased functionality while MS have been working on increased performance!

The figures I get for Saxon 6.5.5 are:

610, 331, 330, 341, 340, 331, 320, 341, 320

I think the faster time you are seeing for 6.5.5 is entirely due to the fact that the product is half the size and therefore loads faster. At steady state, these results show 8.7.3 being 25% faster than 6.5.5, and that's typical of my other measurements.

For Saxon on .NET, I'm currently seeing

761, 471, 490, 481, 481, 481, 510, 481, 491

i.e. not much better than half the Java speed. Presumably that's not an intrinsic feature of the two environments, but a measure of the overhead of cross-compiling.

Michael Kay

re: XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

antosha — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:55:17 GMT

Thanks for the feedback! I have remeasured transformation times using the -9 flag and updated the post. My new results for the Chess-FO stylesheet is close to yours; however, Saxon 6.5.5 still seems to be a bit faster. I tried this scenario on a different computer (Dell XPS 400, Pentium D 2.8GHz, Windows XP MCE, java version 1.5.0_06), and got the same results—Saxon 6.5.5 is a little faster for Chess-FO and significantly faster for Queens. Of course, it may depend on the processor architecture (Intel/AMD) or L1/L2 cache sizes.

re: XslCompiledTransform Performance: Beating MSXML 4.0

workdog — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:11:54 GMT

Great Article!

It would be very interesting to see the same test run with very large files.