So there is no way to create an "entity" (or similar) of a line break
character then?
well yes that's what you did, but using the &lb; is the same as hitting
return on your keyboard: it inserts a newline char. You probably don't
want that, you probably want to insert an xsl:text node containing such a
thing, so you could if you want define lb to be
<!ENTITY lb "<xsl:text> </xsl:text>">
but really, I wouldn't.
XSLT's white space stripping rules are rather simple once you get used
to them and after a while you just know that
<xsl:if test="...">
<wibble/>
does not introduce space before <wibble/> but
<xsl:if test="...">
wobble
does introduce a newline and two spaces before wobble as they are part
of a non-white text node, however if you hide things in entities
<xsl:if test="...">
&lb;
Now you can't say if that newline and two spaces before the &lb; will
be stripped or not unless you go back and check exactly how you defined
&lb;.
and really you are not saving much typing:
<xsl:text> </xsl:text>
ain't so bad, you get used to typing
<xsl:template match="
100 times every stylesheet, you can get used to using xsl:text as
well:-)
David
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list