[castor-dev] 5 times the performance patch(config irrelevant)

[Dean Hiller]

Some more performance baby....

Just add a setParser() method to LocalConfiguration.java for me please.  Then the way to improve performance by 5 times is below.
No it is a not a matter of setting the parser property in config because javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser does not have a null constructor!

I went back and looked at why I get 5 times performance improvement when I started using javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser.  The performance improvement appears to be purely the parser is better and faster than the xerces one used for small messages(around 200 bytes each).(I commented out all configuration in the comparison).  This means we need flexibility to choose parsers which is not there(see below for why).

Issues to be considered during the patch
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Unfortunately, the castor LocalConfiguration.java has no setParser method on it, and instantiates the parser only if it has a null constructor.  Guess what, javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser does not have a null constructor.  In 1.4, you are not even supposed to instantiate it directly, rather you are supposed to go through the factory.  On top of this, I believe castor supports 1.3 which doesn't even have the SAXParserFactory interface for instantiating parsers.  I think the best method would be to put a setParser method on LocalConfiguration.java.  It is a quick and easy patch I believe.  The only thing is you will get the same parser back every time you call getParser().   The Unmarshaller calls getParser().  The other method might be to add setParser on the Unmarshaller and Marshaller???  Anything is fine with me, I just need this quick little change.
thanks,
Dean