<xsl:strip-space elements= />

• Controls the handling of whitespace in the input document
• The elements attribute defines a list of elements whose whitespace-only text nodes are removed

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<thought>
  <title>A Thought</title>
  <body>
    All those things for which
    we have no words are lost
  </body>
  <author>Annie Dillard</author>
</thought>

Stylesheet contains:

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

Result is as though input document was:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<thought><title>A Thought</title><body>
    All those things for which
    we have no words are lost
</body><author>Annie Dillard</author></thought>