[xsl] XSLT: question re testing for possibly empty elements

Subject: [xsl] XSLT: question re testing for possibly empty elements
From: Ralph Holz <ralph.holz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:43:20 +0200
Hi,

I'm working on someone else's code at the moment, and the author uses this construction very often:

<xsl:when test="string-length(anElement) &gt; 0">
statements
<xsl:otherwise>
'else' statements

I *think* what he's trying to do is to test if anElement is empty or not, and act accordingly.

But couldn't you rewrite that as

<xsl:when test="anElement">
...
<xsl:otherwise>
...

(as someone suggested a few threads ago)?

Or does the string-length() method check for something that the second method doesn't cover?

Thanks,
Ralph

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