Re: Output a default value for an empty node

  I thought the usual answer to this kind of query was to use
  normalize-space():


If you really are testing for empty then normalize-space is likely to be
relatively expensive (ie time proportional to the length of the string)
as it will have to go through checking every character to normalise it.

whereas checking for text() is probably (never looked at the code of the
processor) just checking that some structure has a reference to a child
object or not, ie constant time check.

Of course, if by "empty" you include elements containing spaces and tabs
etc, then you do have to pay that cost.

David

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