This relates to Umbraco Version: v 4.5.2 (Assembly version: 1.0.3891.20719) using the new Schema (not the Legacy Schema)

If I have a document type called DocType1 that has 3 properties; PropertyA, PropertyB and PropertyC.

When I create a Content Item from this type and populate all of the properties the following XML is generated (I have removed the attributes as this is a structural issue so they are not relevant):

<DocType1>

  <PropertyA>value</PropertyA>

  <PropertyB>value</PropertyB>

  <PropertyC>value</PropertyC>

<DocType1>

If I leave PropertyA unpopulated then I get the following structure returned:

<DocType1>

  <PropertyA>

    <PropertyB>value</PropertyB>

    <PropertyC>value</PropertyC>

  </PropertyA>

<DocType1>

This only seems to happen if the first property is not populated as different combinations of leaving PropertyB or PropertyC (or both) empty do not produce the same behaviour.

This obviously creates a problem when writing XSLT as the structure is inconsistent depending on whether the first property is populated.