It looks like your input has no mixed content, in which case it makes sense to
use

<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

to remove all interstitial whitespace on input, and

<xsl:output indent="yes"/>

to reconstruct it on output.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

On 15 Nov 2013, at 02:48, Karl Stubsjoen <kstubs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I'm writing a little simple XSLT that translates one Xml to another
> and I am cherry picking items from the first Xml for the new Xml and
> doing an assortment of other things as well.  All is fine and dandy,
> but I'd like to trap the whitespace along with the elements that I am
> removing, instead I am getting big gaps in my resulting Xml.  I
> reallize that I can turn off indent, but what would be the way to
> remove the related whitespace of an element that has been removed?  So
> given:
>
> <data>
> <a>this is a</a>
> <b>this is b</b>
> <c>this is c</c>
> </data>
>
> If I trap b <xsl:template match="b"/> and do nothing with it my result
> looks like:
>
> <data>
> <a>this is a</a>
>
> <c>this is c</c>
> </data>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Karl..