Performance - XML parsing or database calls

[eluser]xwero[/eluser]
dpgtfc the situation you are describing is premature optimization because you are afraid to get menu data out of the database. I'm certain you will have to get much more data out of the database to display other content on the pages.

Caching is an unobtrusive way to improve the performance because you don't have to change the code you have written to get the content. If caching is insufficient you better upgrade your bandwidth instead of butchering your code.