Re: Use of separator

>Isn't it that adjacent text nodes are being merged before the
> separator is applied?

no the separator is added between the string value of each item in the
sequence, resulting in a string that is then used to generate a single
text node, this node may merge with other text nodes generated under the
same parent, but that happens after separators are added.

I've read the spec differently then.  In 5.7.2 Constructing Simple
Content the order is:

1. Zero-length text nodes in the sequence are discarded.
2. Adjacent text nodes in the sequence are merged into a single text node.
3. The sequence is atomized.

...so adjacent text nodes are merged before the sequence is atomized,
giving a sequence of length 1.

cheers
andrew