[xsl] Generic template for collapsing arbitrary length runs of same tag into one tag?

[Richard Bondi <rbondi@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[This is hopefully a clearer re-post of a post that was understood 
differently be different people.]

Dear All,

Consider the following example xml:

<root>
	<Paragraph>While <Characters>S. cerevisiae</Characters> is the most 
commonly studied yeast, it is not the only yeast that has been studied.  Two
	<i>o</i><i>t</i><i>h</i><i>e</i><i>r</i>
yeasts have also been studied to an
	<i>e</i><i>x</i><i>t</i><i>e</i><i>n</i><i>s</i><i>i</i><i>v</i><i>e</i>
degree.  First, studies of <Characters>Schizosaccharomyces 
pombe</Characters> have made extremely important contributions to our 
understanding of the eukaryotic cell cycle.
</Paragraph>
</root>

This needs to be transformed to:

<root>
	<Paragraph>While <Characters>S. cerevisiae</Characters> is the most 
commonly studied yeast, it is not the only yeast that has been studied.  Two
<i>other</i>
	yeasts have also been studied to an
<i>extensive</i>
	degree.  First, studies of <Characters>Schizosaccharomyces 
pombe</Characters> have made extremely important contributions to our 
understanding of the eukaryotic cell cycle.
</Paragraph>
</root>

This is an extract. Throughout the manuscript, there are runs of 
unpredictable length of always adjacent <i> tags. I cannot come up with a 
template which will collapse any such arbitrary-length run of adjacent <i>s 
into a single <i> tag. Can anyone here?

MTIA,
Richard Bondi


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