[xsl] Counting nodes up to a certain sibling

[mclagett@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi -

I am transforming an input html doc into an xml formatted output stream.  The portion of the document I am now working with has been laid out in html as a set of columns, but instead of using tables they did it by inserting spaces enclosed within span tags (aaarrrggghhh!).  I am attempting to implement this simple rule:

for each span tag that includes a space, take all sibling nodes up to the next span tag and output thes within a single output tag. 

The document is structured such that these will only be text nodes or formatting nodes like <i> or <b> or <sub>.  I'm having a hell of a time, however, figuring out how to create a node set that includes only nodes in between a current span node and its next sibling span node.  I've been trying to work with the position() function, but in order to identify the next span node, I have to do it with an axis expression and a filter and then position() only tells me the position of the node with respect to the filtered set.  I need to identify the position of a node matching my characteristics in an unfiltered parent node set.  Can't seem to figure out how to do it.  Is there a way?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.  If this has been answered before, I apologize.  I've spent an awful lot of time looking for it.

Regards,

Mike