JDev deletes empty elements in transform activity

Question

Dear all,
the XSD in my BPEL process defines a "Group" element:
<xs:element name="Groups">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="Group" type="Group_Type" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
<xs:complexType name="Group_Type">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="id" type="xs:int"/>
<xs:element name="name" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:element name="desc" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
As one can see, a "Group" element contains three mandatory elements named "id", "name" and "desc". This "Group" element is the output target of an XSLT transform activity in my BPEL process.
In the output target, the "desc" element should be empty (<desc/> or <desc></desc>). Therefore, the corresponding XSLT should look like:
<foo:Group>
<foo:id>
<xsl:value-of select="'do something'"/>
</foo:id>
<foo:name>
<xsl:value-of select="'do something'"/>
</foo:name>
<foo:desc/>
</foo:Group>
First, it is not possible to define an empty element (<desc/>) in the graphical design modus of an XSLT transform activity. Or is there a workaround available?
Second, when inserting the empty element in the source modus => saving the document => changing to the graphical design modus => do something in the graphical design modus => returning to the source modus, the empty element was deleted by JDeveloper! Is there a workaround for this very annoying bug of Jdev?
Thanks in advance!
Lars

Answer 1

You can also append an xml fragment to put back the missing fields....for example:
- Type: Append (Note, this is different than the copy operation)
- From Type: XML Fragment
- From Value:
<ns4:ShipTo xmlns:ns4="http://www.globalcompany.com/ns/order">
<ns4:Name>
<ns4:First/>
<ns4:Last/>
</ns4:Name>
</ns4:ShipTo>
(Replace ns4 in this example with your namespace .)
- To Type: Variable