Simple Transformation / initial_components not working as expected

I have created a simple transformation to transform from DDIC structures to XML. The structures mimic the XML hierarchy so the conversion is almost 1 to 1.

The problem I'm having is that although some fields have no value, an element is created for them, even when using the initial_components = 'SUPPRESS' option.

This is a simplified version of the real code that has the same behaviour: In this case, DDIC structure YSTESTS has 2 fields: CHARS type CHAR10, and STR type STRING.

ABAP:

REPORT  y_tests2.

DATA:
      gv_initcomp TYPE string,
      xstr    TYPE xstring,
      struct TYPE ystests.


PARAMETERS:
  p_blanks    TYPE c AS CHECKBOX DEFAULT 'X'.

START-OF-SELECTION.

  IF p_blanks = 'X'.
    gv_initcomp = 'INCLUDE'.
  ELSE.
    gv_initcomp = 'SUPPRESS'.
  ENDIF.

* ABAP > XML

  TRY.
      CALL TRANSFORMATION y_tests
        SOURCE data = struct
        RESULT XML xstr
        OPTIONS initial_components = gv_initcomp.
    CATCH cx_transformation_error.
      MESSAGE 'Error en transformación' TYPE 'A'.
  ENDTRY.

  CALL FUNCTION 'SCOL_TRACE_SHOW_XML'
    EXPORTING
      xdoc = xstr.

ST:

<?sap.transform simple?>
<tt:transform xmlns:tt="http://www.sap.com/transformation-templates" xmlns:ddic="http://www.sap.com/abapxml/types/dictionary" xmlns:def="http://www.sap.com/abapxml/types/defined">

  <tt:root name="DATA" type="ddic:YSTESTS"></tt:root>

  <tt:template>
    <data tt:ref="DATA">
        <chars tt:value-ref="CHARS"></chars>
        <str tt:value-ref="STR"></str>
    </data>
  </tt:template>

</tt:transform>

The XML output is like this, even when deselecting the P_BLANKS checkbox:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<data>
  <chars></chars> 
  <str></str> 
</data>

The only solution I've found so far is to post-process the resulting XML using the iXML interfaces (DOM processing) to iterate over all the nodes and remove the empty elements, but I sure hope there is a simpler and cleaner way to achieve this.

Am I right?

Many thanks