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Using XPath from a Java Applet

The Java XPath API described on the previous pages is available from applets, at least with the Java plugin. In practice, I've found that "out of the box", using XPath from a remotely-loaded applet is unworkably slow (at least as of the Java 6 plugin update 13).

I've found a nasty workaround that appears to work, but which involves signing the jar. The workaround is thus as follows:

• in your applet class's init() method (or before you first use the XPath API), add the line:

  System.setProperty("com.sun.org.apache.xml.internal.dtm.DTMManager",
       "com.sun.org.apache.xml.internal.dtm.ref.DTMManagerDefault");
  

• sign the jar.

Setting this property explicitly prevents the XPath API from attempting to hit the network in order to resolve it on every call to XPath.evaluate(), which appears to be the cause of the horrifically slow performance of this call. Unfortunately, signing the jar is then necessary in order to allow the system property to be set.

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