> From a design standpoint, what is the "defacto" way to test 
> for an empty element?  

You have to be very careful what you mean by an "empty element". Which
of the following are empty?

<p/>
<p>  </p>
<p><!-- this is empty --></p>
<p><i></i></p>

p='' checks that the element exists and has an empty string-value: it
will match 1,3,4 in the above list, and 2 if xsl:strip-space is in use.
not(p/node()) checks that the element exists and has no children: it
will match item 1 in the above list.
not(normalize-space(p)) will match all the above.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


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