"Gan Kol" <gankol@g...> wrote in message 
news:uYgPV9PRJHA.5080@T......
> Hi,
>
> I have an xml something like this.
> <Test>
>    <Type>New</Type>
>    <Lang>
>       <English>
>            <Screenplay>test11</Screenplay>
>            <Script>script11</Script>
>         </English>
>       <ExpiryDate>2009-10-10</ExpiryDate>
>    </Lang>
>    <StudentNumber>1234333</StudentNumber>
>    <RequestDate>2008-10-10</RequestDate>
>    <FirstName>David</FirstName>
>    <MiddleName>-</MiddleName>
>    <LastName>Burges</LastName>
>    <Qualifier>-</Qualifier>
>    <Status></Status>
>  </Test>
>
> I would like to have an output xml as the same structure as above, but
> Omit the elements if a "-" is the only data in the element (for eg. should 
> keep the date element expiry date, but omit MiddleName, Qualifier)
> Since i dont know about the xml data and structure inside the xml when 
> doing the xsl transformation, i tried using xsl copy instead of select,
> but didnt know how to check for the conditions.


The following override of the identity transformation is a natural solution:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
 <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

 <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
   <xsl:copy>
     <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
   </xsl:copy>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match=
    "*[text() and not(node()[not(self::text())])]
                       [normalize-space() = '-']"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

When applied on the originally specified xml document:

<Test>
 <Type>New</Type>
 <Lang>
  <English>
   <Screenplay>test11</Screenplay>
   <Script>script11</Script>
  </English>
  <ExpiryDate>2009-10-10</ExpiryDate>
 </Lang>
 <StudentNumber>1234333</StudentNumber>
 <RequestDate>2008-10-10</RequestDate>
 <FirstName>David</FirstName>
 <MiddleName>-</MiddleName>
 <LastName>Burges</LastName>
 <Qualifier>-</Qualifier>
 <Status></Status>
</Test>

the wanted result is produced:

<Test>
   <Type>New</Type>
   <Lang>
      <English>
         <Screenplay>test11</Screenplay>
         <Script>script11</Script>
      </English>
      <ExpiryDate>2009-10-10</ExpiryDate>
   </Lang>
   <StudentNumber>1234333</StudentNumber>
   <RequestDate>2008-10-10</RequestDate>
   <FirstName>David</FirstName>
   <LastName>Burges</LastName>
   <Status/>
</Test>

Hope this helped.

Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev