I already have that, along with the boundary-space option. declare boundary-space preserve; declare option db:chop 'no';

I have the same problem with RESTXQ I guess this is relevant https://github.com/BaseXdb/basex/issues/548 But I believe this problem has not always been there with RESTXQ. Using the API (via Node) without these declares I do not get the problem. Surely special declarations should not be required to, for example, get<spaces/>here for html o/p? /Andy