> That *is* the better syntax, but it didn't work for me (under xalan), 

It worked, it just didn't select what you expected.

select="/textarea/node()[not(br)]"

br selects child br nodes so node()[not(br)] selects nodes that don't
have a br child nodes, which is all nodes in your example.
You could use /textarea/node()[not(self::br)] but its simpler just to use
/textarea/text()


David

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