> I'm trying to figure out how to build a xpath statement to get all the text 
> nodes besides from the 2nd <para> element of the 2nd <test> element. I
> Is such a statement even possible in xpath? 

Yes.

> Also, how would I implement such a query on xslt?

Here's a quick and dirty stylesheet. There are, undoubtedly, more elegant means.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
  <xsl:strip-space elements="*" />

    <xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:apply-templates />
    </xsl:template>
  
  <xsl:template match="root">
    <xsl:apply-templates />
  </xsl:template>
  
  <xsl:template match="test">
    <xsl:apply-templates />
  </xsl:template>
  
  <xsl:template match="para[not(position()=2)]">
    <xsl:value-of select="." />
  </xsl:template>
  
  <xsl:template match="para[position()=2][parent::*[count(preceding-sibling::test)=1]]" />

</xsl:stylesheet>


-- 
Charles Knell
cknell@xxxxxxxxxx - email


> Assuming I have a document like this:

> <root>
>    <test>
>       <para>Text1</para>
>       <para>Text2</para>
>       <para>Text3</para>
>     </test>
>    <test>
>       <para>Text1</para>
>       <para>Text2</para>
>       <para>Text3</para>
>     </test>
>     <test>
>       <para>Text1</para>
>       <para>Text2</para>
>       <para>Text3</para>
>     </test>
> </root>