>    <xsl:value-of select="count(software/descendent::*[ name() != ' ' ])">

that selects all descendents of the software element with element type
name notthe space character ' '  , which is all of them as that is not a
legal XML name.

>  Give a count of software without any child element for the "software"
>  node ? In the above example, the answer should be 2. 
> 
I think you wanted
  count(software[not(*)])

David


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