There is a special rule here: in the sequence selected by the select
attribute, adjacent text nodes are concatenated before inserting the
separator. There's a long and convoluted history to this: it doesn't make
much sense in this example, but there are other examples where it does.
Apologies for the half-answer, but I'm on holiday!

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Georg Hohmann [mailto:georg.hohmann@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 07 August 2006 17:22
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Use of separator
> 
> Hi,
> 
> i have some trouble understanding the separator-attribute of value-of.
> This is my template:
> 
> <xsl:template match="example">
>    <helloWorld>
>       <xsl:value-of select="element()/text()" separator=", "/>
>    </helloWorld>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> The element "example" contains several child-nodes with text. 
> The above expression gives the  expected values but without 
> the separator ("TextTextText"). But if i change the value-of 
> expression to this...
> 
> <xsl:value-of select="*" separator=", "/>
> 
> ... i also get the values, now separated with commas ("Text, 
> Text, Text").
> 
> Now i wonder why the result of the first expression contains 
> no separator while the other one does. Any explanations?
> 
> Georg.