So I'm not sure if anyone else has posted anything else like this, but I thought I'd throw it out there.... please remember - I'm not a mathmatician nor a statician (I guess I might not even be a speller )

With that in mind - here ya go...

I did some testing (not much) with the 'load' method of the XML object. I started out with the idea that using attributes to describe the data would be faster in Flash's parser than using elements to describe the data. Both the Large and Small tags were repeated either 1 time, 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times, or 10,000 times.


Test Machine:
AMDK6-2 450MHz
300 MB RAM

Large:
< top > < inside1 > a < / inside1 > < inside2 > b < / inside2 > < inside3 > c < / inside3 > < / top >

Small:
< top inside1="a" inside2="b" inside3="c" / >

Large:

1x=.05 seconds (71 bytes)
10x=.32 seconds (710 bytes)
100x=2.68 seconds (7 KB)
1,000x=49.65 seconds (70 KB) ** Flash gave the error that a script was causing it to run slowly and asked if I wanted to abort - I chose NOT to abort. I let it finish. This effected the total time, but that's kinda the idea.. to see how long it takes to get to the end... **

Short:

1x=.05 seconds (42 bytes)
10x=.06 seconds (420 bytes)
100x=.31 seconds (5 KB)
1,000x=3.27 seconds (42 KB) 60% file 6.5% of the time
10,000x=17.24 seconds (165 KB) 6.034 seconds for equiv file size on Large1,000x

1,000xLarge and 10,000xSmall:

A file that was 2.3 times the size, took 65% less time to load. Large had 4,000 'nodes' - Small had 10,000 'nodes'. 2.5 times as many nodes.

To describe the same amount of data: (different amount of nodes - Large=4,000 Small=1,000)

1,000xLarge and 1,000xSmall:

70 KB vs 42 KB
49.65 vs 3.27

60% the size 6.5% the time.

Taking this data and going both backward and forward we can 'assume' that equivalent file sizes will produce between:

70 KB times 2.357 = 164.99 KB @ 17.24 seconds (Small)
49.65 times 2.357 = 164.99 KB @ 117.025 seconds (Large) (to load the same size file)
So.... one boundary for the 'same file size' could be - 85.268% savings on time to load. (Taken off of making the actual file size equivalent.)

and

1,000 nodes times 4 = 4,000 nodes @ 49.65 seconds (Large)
3.27 times 4 = 4000 nodes @ 13.08 seconds (Small) (to load the same number of nodes)
So.... one boundary for the 'same file size' could be - 73.655% savings on time to load. (Taken off of making the number of nodes in the file equivalent.)



Well... that's it... yeah I know.. it's sad that this is what I find to do when I want to have fun... Oh well....

... and if anybody else has testing thy've done - post it here. Maybe we can try to gather some kind of 'Efficiency' polls.... try to figure out what the best way to do Flash/XML is...

My contribution: An XML document using attributes to describe data is loaded quicker than an XML document using elements to describe data.