>   Is the expected behaviour that the whitespace text nodes
> are stripped
> out in a document node constructed in a variable?

No, but it is expected that whitespace text nodes are removed from the
stylesheet while it is being compiled. If you want to generate whitespace
text nodes, use xsl:text or xsl:value-of.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/


  If it is, does
> someone can point me out relevant parts of the recommendation?
> Following is a simple test tested with Saxon 8.6.1:
>
>     ~/drafts/fctx $ cat white-spaces.xsl
>     <xsl:stylesheet
>         xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>         version="2.0">
>
>       <xsl:output method="text"/>
>
>       <xsl:preserve-space elements="elem"/>
>
>       <xsl:variable name="var">
>         <elem>
>           <a/> <b/> bla <c/>
>         </elem>
>       </xsl:variable>
>
>       <xsl:template match="/">
>         <xsl:apply-templates select="$var/elem/(*|text())"/>
>       </xsl:template>
>
>       <xsl:template match="*">
>         <xsl:text>Elem #</xsl:text>
>         <xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
>         <xsl:text>: </xsl:text>
>         <xsl:value-of select="local-name()"/>
>         <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
>       </xsl:template>
>
>       <xsl:template match="text()">
>         <xsl:text>text #</xsl:text>
>         <xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
>         <xsl:text>: [</xsl:text>
>         <xsl:value-of select="."/>
>         <xsl:text>]&#10;</xsl:text>
>       </xsl:template>
>
>     </xsl:stylesheet>
>     ~/drafts/fctx $ saxon white-spaces.xsl white-spaces.xsl
>     Elem #1: a
>     Elem #2: b
>     text #3: [ bla ]
>     Elem #4: c
>     ~/drafts/fctx $
>
>   Regards,
>
> --drkm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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