>   Is this the syntax I'd want?

it depends what you want,

[@ns:attr != ''] is true if the string value of ns:attr is not empty.
 That is it is true as long as a non empty value is specified.
 note if the element had   ns:attr="" the test would be false.

you might want

[not(@ns:attr)] which is true if there is no ns:atrr even if it is
specified but empty.

David


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