[xsl] output modified branch - best practice

Hello,

the sample I will post here is working the way I want. My question will be
about best practices. This arose when I was searching a solution for this
problem.

source:

<root>
  <base>
    <data>
      <first>John</first>
      <last>Doe</last>
      <dob/>
      <zip>90210</zip>
      <phone/>
      <mobile>(999) 484 6584</mobile>
      <email>john(_at_)apple(_dot_)com</email>
    </data>
  </base>
  <update>
    <data>
      <dob>1977-12-20</dob>
      <phone>(555) 229 8811</phone>
      <mobile/>
      <email>john(_at_)google(_dot_)com</email>
    </data>
  </update>
</root>


xslt:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
version="2.0">
  <xsl:output method="xml" encoding="UTF-8"/>
  <xsl:template match="/root/base/data">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="/root/base/data/*">
    <xsl:variable name="var.update" select="/root/update/data/*[name() =
current()/name()]"/>
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="exists($var.update)">
        <xsl:copy-of select="$var.update"/>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="text()"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>


output:

<data>
  <first>John</first>
  <last>Doe</last>
  <dob>1977-12-20</dob>
  <zip>90210</zip>
  <phone>(555) 229 8811</phone>
  <mobile/>
  <email>john(_at_)google(_dot_)com</email>
</data>


So base/data and update/data are merged. Each element in base/data is
copied unless the same element exists in update/data; then it will be
overwritten.

Since I just want the modified base/data branch as output I have to get
rid of whatever the built-in template rules produces. After some research
I found that <xsl:template match="text()"/> is the easiest solution. But
in one post the author said that this was not such a good idea.
Unfortunately I  did not bookmark it.

So, is the easy solution a good solution? Is there a best practice to
output a modified branch?

Thanks for your help and suggestions,

Heiko




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