XSLT Preserve Space in Attributes

[Lyndon J B Nixon <nixon@fokus.gmd.de>]

is it possible to preserve space in attribute values when passing them to
a XSLT processor?

from reading specs and testing transformations myself (using
Xalan/Xerces) it seems that <xsl:preserve-space>, <xml:space>
and CDATA sections all apply to elements and text nodes, not to the text
content of attributes. 

I am retrieving Javascript code contained in an attribute in a XML
document element with the Xalan XSLT processor, and the result text
output does not execute. It seems to me that this is because
<xsl:value-of> is converting the code to a string. When I copy and
paste the code from the XML to the text document the code executes OK.
However I need to be able to "grab" the code with XSLT, so is
there a way to do this or do I need to tell the XML authors that the code
should be in a text node rather than an attribute?

thanks in advance

lyndon

Lyndon J B Nixon ... MAGIC Centre, FHG FOKUS ... Berlin, Germany
"what is now proved was once only imagined" - william blake
PhD Student, Integration of Internet with MPEG-4 & MPEG-7
nixon@fokus.fhg.de   members.tripod.co.uk/~madeejit/phd.htm