Re: [xsl] xpath - check for no content

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman at CraneSoftwrights dot com>]

At 2002-07-29 17:43 +0200, sascha wrote:
> simple question i guess:
> How do i check if the <run> element or one of it's childsren does not have
> any content?
> Meaning that there is no output text or so inbetween.
In your example below, you do have text in between ... you have text nodes 
comprised only of white-space characters.

> example:
> <run>
> <font size="17pt" style="bold" name="Arial" color="red"/>
> <break/>
> </run>
>
> I tried...
If the white-space *is* significant, just check the value of the current node:

  <xsl:if test=". = ''">

If the white-space *isn't* significant, trim leading and trailing just in 
case the input was "lazily" empty:

  <xsl:if test="normalize-space(.)=''">

Note this is a common problem where users *think* an element is empty, but 
they've inserted a new-line to make the indentation look nice, not 
realizing they no longer have an empty element.

I hope this helps.

.................. Ken


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