diff --git a/activesupport/CHANGELOG b/activesupport/CHANGELOG
index 94c496c54b031..1ecee37c46fb2 100644
--- a/activesupport/CHANGELOG
+++ b/activesupport/CHANGELOG
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 *SVN*
 
+* Fix that empty collections should be treated as empty arrays regardless of whitespace for Hash#from_xml #10255 [adamj]
+
 * Time#time_with_datetime_fallback, Time#to_datetime, Date#to_datetime and String#to_datetime honor Ruby's default calendar reform setting. #10201 [Geoff Buesing]
 
 * Change Time and DateTime #end_of_month to return last second of month instead of beginning of last day of month. Closes #10200 [Geoff Buesing]
diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/hash/conversions.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/hash/conversions.rb
index bbe35c25e45d6..e196c5d7b943b 100644
--- a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/hash/conversions.rb
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/hash/conversions.rb
@@ -174,20 +174,9 @@ def from_xml(xml)
             def typecast_xml_value(value)
               case value.class.to_s
                 when 'Hash'
-                  if value.has_key?("__content__")
-                    content = value["__content__"]
-                    if parser = XML_PARSING[value["type"]]
-                      if parser.arity == 2
-                        XML_PARSING[value["type"]].call(content, value)
-                      else
-                        XML_PARSING[value["type"]].call(content)
-                      end
-                    else
-                      content
-                    end
-                  elsif value['type'] == 'array'
+                  if value['type'] == 'array'
                     child_key, entries = value.detect { |k,v| k != 'type' }   # child_key is throwaway
-                    if entries.nil?
+                    if entries.nil? || (c = value['__content__'] && c.blank?)
                       []
                     else
                       case entries.class.to_s   # something weird with classes not matching here.  maybe singleton methods breaking is_a?
@@ -199,6 +188,17 @@ def typecast_xml_value(value)
                         raise "can't typecast #{entries.inspect}"
                       end
                     end
+                  elsif value.has_key?("__content__")
+                    content = value["__content__"]
+                    if parser = XML_PARSING[value["type"]]
+                      if parser.arity == 2
+                        XML_PARSING[value["type"]].call(content, value)
+                      else
+                        XML_PARSING[value["type"]].call(content)
+                      end
+                    else
+                      content
+                    end
                   elsif value['type'] == 'string' && value['nil'] != 'true'
                     ""
                   # blank or nil parsed values are represented by nil
diff --git a/activesupport/test/core_ext/hash_ext_test.rb b/activesupport/test/core_ext/hash_ext_test.rb
index fe728919cdbc9..2be9ab8999bf7 100644
--- a/activesupport/test/core_ext/hash_ext_test.rb
+++ b/activesupport/test/core_ext/hash_ext_test.rb
@@ -549,6 +549,17 @@ def test_empty_array_from_xml
     assert_equal expected_blog_hash, Hash.from_xml(blog_xml)
   end
 
+  def test_empty_array_with_whitespace_from_xml
+    blog_xml = <<-XML
+      <blog>
+        <posts type="array">
+        </posts>
+      </blog>
+    XML
+    expected_blog_hash = {"blog" => {"posts" => []}}
+    assert_equal expected_blog_hash, Hash.from_xml(blog_xml)
+  end
+
   def test_array_with_one_entry_from_xml
     blog_xml = <<-XML
       <blog>