Minor performance improvement. String.length() == 0 tends to be slightly faster than String.equals("").
diff --git a/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/DocumentCache.java b/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/DocumentCache.java
index ba7093f..7f9f03b 100644
--- a/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/DocumentCache.java
+++ b/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/DocumentCache.java
@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@
 	CachedDocument doc;
 
     String uri = href;
-    if (baseURI != null && !baseURI.equals("")) {
+    if (baseURI != null && baseURI.length() != 0) {
         try {
             uri = SystemIDResolver.getAbsoluteURI(uri, baseURI);
         } catch (TransformerException te) {
diff --git a/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/LoadDocument.java b/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/LoadDocument.java
index 058f89f..e72afbe 100644
--- a/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/LoadDocument.java
+++ b/src/org/apache/xalan/xsltc/dom/LoadDocument.java
@@ -158,13 +158,13 @@
         MultiDOM multiplexer = (MultiDOM)dom;
 
         // Prepend URI base to URI (from context)
-        if (base != null && !base.equals("")) {
+        if (base != null && base.length() != 0) {
             uri = SystemIDResolver.getAbsoluteURI(uri, base);
         }
 
         // Return an empty iterator if the URI is clearly invalid
         // (to prevent some unncessary MalformedURL exceptions).
-        if (uri == null || uri.equals("")) {
+        if (uri == null || uri.length() == 0) {
             return(EmptyIterator.getInstance());
         }