XSL output method text including whitespaces in xsl

Question

I am creating some xsl to transform my xml into text (which will be csv eventually). I am using VS2008. When I use the editor to create the xsl, the transformed output is

Answer 1

The XSLT processor strips white-space text nodes in the template only between XSLT elements.

So, in

<xsl:for-each select="//rows/row"> 
  <![CDATA[row id=]]><xsl:value-of select="(@id)"/> 
</xsl:for-each>

the xsl:for-each element has two white-space text child nodes: One after xsl:value-of, which is stripped; the other before the CDATA section, which is not stripped.

Bottom line: Use xsl:text elements.

<xsl:for-each select="//rows/row"> 
  <xsl:text><![CDATA[row id=]]></xsl:text>
  <xsl:value-of select="@id"/> 
</xsl:for-each>

Answer 2

You can use the xsl:strip element to declare which elements should not have whitespace (or use * for all elements):

<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

The counter part is xsl:preserve, which allows you to declare which elements should have whitespace preserved. You could use both:

<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:preserve-space elements="td span"/>
<!-- strip spaces from all elements apart from td and span elements -->