Hi, Given this stylesheet: <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" exclude-result-prefixes="xs" version="2.0"> <xsl:variable name="mixed" as="element()"> <mixed>Here is mixed content, including <one>children</one> <two>with nothing</two> but whitespace between them.</mixed> </xsl:variable> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:apply-templates select="$mixed"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="node() | @*"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="node() | @*"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> I run it on itself in oXygen, and get <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><mixed>Here is mixed content, including <one>children</one><two>with nothing</two> but whitespace between them.</mixed> I would expect whitespace between the </one><two>. What am I missing? Have things changed wrt whitespace-handling rules? (As I see it, the temporary tree $mixed should contain a whitespace-only text node between the 'one' and 'two' elements.) Thanks for any insights, Wendell -- Wendell Piez | http://www.wendellpiez.com XML | XSLT | electronic publishing Eat Your Vegetables _____oo_________o_o___ooooo____ooooooo_^