Thank you Michael and Ken for pointing out that this is a grouping problem. Very clear. I know this is the wrong list but it makes wonder then how you do it with XQuery...

Thanks,
Morgan

--- On Fri, 10/16/09, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE:  empty element question
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Friday, October 16, 2009, 8:15 PM
> 
> In XSLT 2.0, using positional grouping:
> 
> <xsl:for-each-group select="node()"
> group-starting-with="lb">
>   <p>
>     <xsl:copy-of
> select="current-group()[not(self::lb)]"/>
>   </p>
> </xsl:for-each-group>
> 
> This is sufficiently general to handle more complex
> instances than you show:
> multiple <lb/> elements, other markup as children of
> <p>, etc. It doesn't
> handle the more complex problem of an <lb/> element
> that's a descendant of
> the <p> element rather than a child - that one comes
> up on this list
> occasionally, and is hard.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay  
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: M C [mailto:mcundiff11@xxxxxxxxx]
> 
> > Sent: 16 October 2009 21:05
> > To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject:  empty element question
> > 
> > How do I transform this input document:
> > 
> >   <div>
> >     <p>string
> 1<lb/>string 2</p>
> >   </div>
> > 
> > to this output document?
> > 
> >   <div>
> >     <p>string 1</p>
> >     <p>string 2</p>
> >   </div>
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Morgan