normalize-space Function
Returns the argument string with the leading, trailing, and repeating white spaces stripped.
string normalize-space(string)
Remarks
White space is normalized by stripping leading and trailing white space and replacing sequences of white space characters with a single space. If the argument is omitted, the string-value of the context node is normalized and returned.
The following function call returns "abc def":
normalize-space(" abc def ")
If an argument is not of the type string*,* it is first converted to a string and then evaluated. See the example below.
If an argument is not of type string, it is first converted to a string using the string() function and then the result of that conversion is evaluated.
.gif "Caution note") Caution |
|---|
String conversions for node sets that are passed as arguments to this function may yield unexpected results. For more information, see string Function. |
This function is case-sensitive.
Example
The following example normalizes a block of text string with unnormalized white spaces (tabs, leading and trailing spaces, and multiple spaces between words. The text string is the value of an <text> element.
XML File (normSpace.xml)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl"
href="normalizeSpace.xsl"?>
<text>
This is a
test, with a lot of
irregular spacing and
waiting to be normalizaed.
</text>
XSLT File (normSpace.xsl)
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml"
omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/text">
Unnormalized:
"<xsl:value-of select='.'/>"
Normalized: "<xsl:value-of select='normalize-space()'/>"
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This XSLT produces the following output:
Unormalized:
"
This is a
test, with a lot of
irregular spacing and
waiting to be normalizaed.
"
Normalized:
"This is a test, with a lot of irregular spacing and waiting to be normalized."