Basically, I need to delete an element and if the element is the last child element, I will also need to delete the parent element.

Example: I want to delete the owner element, and if it is the only element i would also need to delete the company element.

<catalog>
    <cd>
        <title>Empire Burlesque</title>
        <artist>Bob Dylan</artist>
        <country>USA</country>
        <company>
            <name>Columbia</name>
            <owner>Bill</owner>
        </company>
        <price>10.90</price>
        <year>1985</year>
    </cd>
    <cd edge="hello">
        <title>Hide your heart</title>
        <artist>Bonnie Tyler</artist>
        <country>UK</country>
        <company>
            <owner>John</owner>
        </company>
        <price>9.90</price>
        <year>1988</year>
        <month fyear="1990">1988</month>
    </cd>
</catalog>

The output should be this..

<catalog>
    <cd>
        <title>Empire Burlesque</title>
        <artist>Bob Dylan</artist>
        <country>USA</country>
        <company>
            <name>Columbia</name>
        </company>
        <price>10.90</price>
        <year>1985</year>
    </cd>
    <cd edge="hello">
        <title>Hide your heart</title>
        <artist>Bonnie Tyler</artist>
        <country>UK</country>
        <price>9.90</price>
        <year>1988</year>
        <month fyear="1990">1988</month>
    </cd>
</catalog>

Thanks...

You don't "delete" elements in XSLT, you merely refrain from copying them.

Write an identity template rule that copies elements:

<xsl:template match="*">
  <xsl:copy>
  <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:copy>

Then add a "do-nothing" template rule for the elements you want to delete (ie, not copy).

<xsl:template match="owner"/>

<xsl:template match="company[count(*) = count(owner)]"/>



Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference