> your 3b xml file does have line feeds as posted
> 
> <genericSiteDoc>
>  <cityInstal>India</cityInstal><cityI
> 
> so the first child of genericSiteDoc is a text node and the cityInstall
> elements
> will have positions 2,3,4... if you use select="node()" (which is the
> default for apply-templates. you seem to get 2 4 6 which wouldimply that
> there is some space or comments that you are not seeing.
> Generally it's betterto use an explicit select="cityInstall" if you want
> to number with position() so you are sure that you are counting what you
> expect, or use xsl:number.
> 
> David

Thank you, just removing that one line feed so that

<genericSiteDoc><cityInstal>India</cityInstal>.....

did solve the problem, producing values for position() of 1,2,3.... for this 
particular example.