Writing big XML files where beginning depends on end.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Magnus Lycka wrote:

> We're using DOM to create XML files that describes fairly
> complex calculations. The XML is structured as a big tree,
> where elements in the beginning have values that depend on
> other values further down in the tree. Imagine something
> like below, but much bigger and much more complex:
>
> <node sum="15">
>     <node sum="10">
>         <leaf>7</leaf'>
>         <node sum="3">
>             <leaf>2</leaf'>
>             <leaf>1</leaf>
>         </node>
>     </node>
>     <node sum="5">
>         <leaf>5</leaf>
>     </node>
> </node>

what's the typical overall structure for this tree ?  is it short and wide, or tall and
narrow ?

or in other words, if you would extract all /node/node elements (that is, node
elements just under the document root) from a large file, would you typically get
a long list with small nodes, or a short list with a few large nodes ?

</F>