I have an xml that has a description node:

<config>
  <desc>A <b>first</b> sentence here. The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>. The <u>third</u> one.</desc>
</config>

I am trying to split the sentences using dot as separator but keeping in the same time in the HTML output the eventual HTML tags. What I have so far is a template that splits the description but the HTML tags are lost in the output due to the normalize-space and substring-before functions. My current template is given below:

<xsl:template name="output-tokens">
  <xsl:param name="sourceText" />

  <!-- Force a . at the end -->
  <xsl:variable name="newlist" select="concat(normalize-space($sourceText), ' ')" />
  <!-- Check if we have really a point at the end -->
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test ="contains($newlist, '.')">
      <!-- Find the first . in the string -->
      <xsl:variable name="first" select="substring-before($newlist, '.')" />

      <!-- Get the remaining text -->
      <xsl:variable name="remaining" select="substring-after($newlist, '.')" />
      <!-- Check if our string is not in fact a . or an empty string -->
      <xsl:if test="normalize-space($first)!='.' and normalize-space($first)!=''">
        <p><xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($first)" />.</p>
      </xsl:if>
      <!-- Recursively apply the template for the remaining text -->
      <xsl:if test="$remaining">
        <xsl:call-template name="output-tokens">
          <xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="$remaining" />
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:if>
    </xsl:when>
    <!--If no . was found -->
    <xsl:otherwise>
      <p>
        <!-- If the string does not contains a . then display the text but avoid 
           displaying empty strings 
         -->
        <xsl:if test="normalize-space($sourceText)!=''">
          <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($sourceText)" />.
        </xsl:if>
      </p>
    </xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

and I am using it in the following manner:

<xsl:template match="config">
  <xsl:call-template name="output-tokens">
       <xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="desc" />
  </xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>

The expected output is:

<p>A <b>first</b> sentence here.</p>
<p>The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>.</p>
<p>The <u>third</u> one.</p>