Tricky whitespace handling in XSLT

Whitespace in a text string

             <description> This    is a test. </description>

normalize-space()

            normalize-space(description)

 translate() and replace()

            translate(description, '&#x20;&#x9;&#xD;&#xA;', ' ')

Whitespace-only text nodes

           <test>

                             <item/>

                        <item/>

             <item/>

</test>

Why strip whitespace-only text nodes

           <xsl:strip-space  elements="*"/>

xsl:strip-space and position()

           Input XML

<test>

  <item/>

  <item/>

  <item/>

</test>

XSLT stylesheet

<xsl:stylesheet  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">

  <xsl:template  match="/">

    <test>

      <xsl:apply-templates/>

    </test>

  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template  match="item">

    <no>

      <xsl:value-of  select="position()"/>

    </no>

  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

           

            Output XML

<test>

  <no>2</no>

  <no>4</no>

  <no>6</no>

</test>

xsl:strip-space and xsl:preserve-space

            <xsl:preserve-space elements="…"/>

Whitespace-only in mixed content

            <para>I <strong>love</strong> <name>Mozart</name></para>

<xsl:preserve-space  elements="resume headline para"/>

Whitespace in the XSLT stylesheet

            <xsl:value-of  select="firstname"/>

<xsl:text> </xsl:text>

<xsl:value-of  select="lastname"/>

<xsl:value-of  select="firstname"/>

<xsl:text> </xsl:text>

<xsl:value-of  select="lastname"/><xsl:for-each  select="item">

  <xsl:value-of  select="."/>,

</xsl:for-each>

<xsl:for-each  select="item">

<xsl:value-of  select="."/>, <xsl:text/>

</xsl:for-each>

<xsl:for-each  select="item">

  <xsl:value-of  select="."/>, <br/>

</xsl:for-each>

<xsl:for-each  select="item">  <xsl:value-of  select="."/>, <br/>&#160;</xsl:for-each>