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

["Andrew Welch" <ajwelch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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?


Consider <foo>   </foo> and <foo/>

"string-length(anElement) > 0" will return true for the first one,
"normalize-space()" will return false for both.


Cheers
andrew