Stringbuilder vs SQL FOR XML / XSL Transform

Question

I have an interface that loads a list of documents depending on the tab clicked by a user.

I've been retrieving the data through XML from a SQL 2008 database with:

SELECT col1, col2 col3 FROM documents WHERE typeId = 4 FOR XML PATH('doc'), ROOT('documents')

Then tranforming the XML with an XSLT stylesheet. It all works fine.

To improve the experience I'm trying to use JQuery to load the list of documents when a tab is clicked. I was going to return a chunk of html to the client and replace the html of the div that contains the list of documents.

I have a couple of options, transform the XML from SQL to HTML and return the resulting string to the client

or

Forget about SQL XML and convert a datable into a HTML string using Stringbuilder like:

Dim _d As New Document
Dim dt As Data.DataTable = _d.GetDocuments(0, 0, 0, "2009", "")
Dim builder As New StringBuilder("<table><tr><td>Title1</td><td>Title2</td><td>Title3</td><td>Title4</td></tr>")
    For i = 0 To dt.Rows.Count - 1
        builder.Append("<tr><td>")
        builder.Append("<a href=""http://www.google.ie"" target=""_blank"">")
        builder.Append(dt.Rows(i).Item("documentTitle").ToString)
        builder.Append("</a></td>")
        builder.Append("<td>")
        builder.Append(dt.Rows(i).Item("documentTitle").ToString)
        builder.Append("</td>")
        builder.Append("<td>")
        builder.Append(dt.Rows(i).Item("documentTitle").ToString)
        builder.Append("</td>")
        builder.Append("<td>")
        builder.Append(dt.Rows(i).Item("documentTitle").ToString)
        builder.Append("</td></tr>")
    Next
builder.Append("</table>")
dt.Dispose()
_d = Nothing
Return builder.ToString

Does anyone have a better way of implementing this?

Using Stringbuilder seems to win out over SQL XML in any tests I've tried.

Answer 1

Question might not have been clearer enough, found a good artcile with information I was after here http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/12/the_ajax_respon.html