as wierd as the subject sounds, that what I'm trying to do. How to test if there is no node or child node?
to test if a node exists you could write <xsl:if test="root/child"> but how can you test if that child doesn't exists?

one way would be the classic

when exists...
otherwise..

but what I need is to do this in an if. So I need to say "if there is no child node with the name of X, do action A". How can that be done?