> If it works the other way, why bother with the
> xsl:text?  

because if you miss out the xsl:text then 9 times out of 10 you get
extra white space in your result tree. This may or may not matter,
depending on what you are doing.

<foo>
  <xsl:text>a</xsl:text>
  <xsl:text>b</xsl:text>
</foo>

adds <foo>ab</foo> to your output, but allows you to indent the
stylesheet however you like,

<foo>
  a
  b
</foo>

adds
<foo>&#10;&#32;&#32;a&#10;&#32;&#32;b&#10;</foo>
to your result tree.

David


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list