Question

What has more performance in XSLT while writing an XHTML element

<xsl:element name="div">
  <xsl:attribute name="class">someclass</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:element>

or just write it out

<div class="someclass"></div>

Does it make any difference in processing-speed / -performance etc. ?

Answer 1

I suspected that XSLT compilers probably convert one into the other internally and, sure enough, at least some of them do:

Literal result elements now compile
internally into xsl:element and
xsl:attribute instructions. This
results in changes to trace output:
each attribute is now traced as a
separate instruction.

More generally, this smells like the kind of micro-optimization that’s unlikely to render an improvement that outweighs the benefits of choosing the more readable version.