As already stated this makes a difference for mixed content.
Take this simple XML file as sample:

$ cat mixed.xml
<a>  1<b>2</b>3</a>
$

While string(/a) returns a string, /a/text() returns a node-set:
$ xpath++ "string(/a)" mixed.xml
  123
$ xpath++ "/a/text()" mixed.xml

###################################################################
  1
###################################################################
3
$

This makes a big difference if applying the often used normalize-space()
function to the result. If you want to get the normalized concatenation
of the content ("123"/"13") directly applying normalize-space() does not
work (for "13"). The reason is that normalize-space() applied to a node-set
will only be applied to the first node of that node-set:
$ xpath++ "normalize-space(string(/a))" mixed.xml
123
$ xpath++ "normalize-space(/a/text())" mixed.xml
1
$

What I do for getting "13" from mixed.xml:
<xsl:variable name="txt"><xsl:copy-of select="text()"/></xsl:variable>
<xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($txt)"/>

Not sure whether this is the best way to do it, but it works.

Is getting the same result possible in XPath (1.0)?

Cheers,
Wendell

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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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