Remove empty xml elements recursively with XSLT
recursion, xml, xslt
Solution
The condition `not(*)` is false for any element that has children - regardless of what the children contain.
If you want to "prune" the tree of any branches that do not carry "fruit", try:
XSLT 1.0
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template match="*[descendant::text() or descendant-or-self::*/@*[string()]]">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="@*[string()]">
<xsl:copy/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Problem
I am trying to recursively remove 'empty' elements (no children, no attribute or empty attribute) from the xml. This is the XSLT I have ``` <xsl:template match="node()|@*"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="*[not(*) and string-length(.)=0 and (not(@*) or @*[string-length(.)=0])]"> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:template> ``` This is the input XML. I expect this XML to be transformed to a empty string ``` <world> <country> <state> <city> <suburb1></suburb1> <suburb2></suburb2> </city> </state> </country> </world> ``` But instead I am getting ``` <world> <country> <state/> </country> </world> ``` Can anyone help? I've researched many threads in the forum but still no luck.