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Fix separator not backtracked when complex-typed array element fails - #1716

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olabusayoT:daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack
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olabusayoT:daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack

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For a maxOccurs-bounded occursCountKind="implicit" array whose element type is complex with no possible zero-length representation (e.g. every branch of a choice requires a distinct non-empty initiator), the speculative attempt at an occurrence beyond the real data would parse its preceding separator successfully, then fail the content entirely with zero bits consumed. anyTypeElementFailedParseAttemptStatus classified this as AbsentRep, whose contract is to retain the bit position (keep the separator consumed); that is correct for a genuinely empty representation, but wrong here since there is no occurrence at all. This let the separator leak into whatever sequence child comes next, causing spurious "separator not found" / "terminator not found" errors.

Gate the AbsentRep classification on isEmptyRepZeroLength for complex types, so a structurally-impossible zero-length failure returns MissingItem instead, which forces the caller to fully backtrack the point of uncertainty including the separator.

DAFFODIL-3094

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+1

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+1

@olabusayoT
olabusayoT force-pushed the daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack branch from 6f67018 to 8ae8dbb Compare September 3, 2026 18:05
For a maxOccurs-bounded occursCountKind="implicit" array whose element type
is complex with no possible zero-length representation (e.g. every branch
of a choice requires a distinct non-empty initiator), the speculative
attempt at an occurrence beyond the real data would parse its preceding
separator successfully, then fail the content entirely with zero bits
consumed. anyTypeElementFailedParseAttemptStatus classified this as
AbsentRep, whose contract is to retain the bit position (keep the
separator consumed); that is correct for a genuinely empty representation,
but wrong here since there is no occurrence at all. This let the separator
leak into whatever sequence child comes next, causing spurious "separator
not found" / "terminator not found" errors.

Gate the AbsentRep classification on isEmptyRepZeroLength for complex
types, so a structurally-impossible zero-length failure returns
MissingItem instead, which forces the caller to fully backtrack the point
of uncertainty including the separator.

Added tests to exercise.

DAFFODIL-3094
@olabusayoT
olabusayoT force-pushed the daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack branch from 8ae8dbb to 1848c10 Compare September 4, 2026 19:16
…backtracking

The prior fix gated AbsentRep vs MissingItem on the static isEmptyRepZeroLength
flag, but that only describes whether some successful parse of the type could
be zero-length, not whether this particular failed attempt was genuinely
empty. A choice whose real branch matches part of its content then fails nets
zero bits once backed out, indistinguishable from a genuine empty match by
bit position alone.

Track this via pointOfUncertaintyResetCount, which counts resets that
actually undo bit position movement, and a mark stack letting a sequence
child's attempt check, via hadPointOfUncertaintyResetSinceMark, whether such
a reset happened during it. Added tests for both cases.

DAFFODIL-3094
@olabusayoT
olabusayoT force-pushed the daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack branch from dcdf762 to 4eeab17 Compare September 8, 2026 14:20
…tion for complex array elements

The Optional+zero-length branch of anyTypeElementFailedParseAttemptStatus
unconditionally returned AbsentRep on a failed parse attempt. AbsentRep's
caller-side handling backs out infoset side effects then re-jumps forward
past whatever was consumed, retaining any separator found along the way.
That is correct for the documented simple-type idiom (adjacent delimiters
of an enclosing group indicating a genuinely empty positional slot), but
wrong for complex types: per DFDL Spec 9.3.2.2, a complex type's empty or
absent representation can only be established by a descent that returns
successfully, never by one that fails. Per 9.2.4/9.2.6, Absent is the
narrower, positionally-locatable subset of the broader Missing case; a
failed complex-type descent belongs to Missing, not Absent. The prior
fix (4eeab17) tried to patch this with a static isEmptyRepZeroLength
check and, when that proved insufficient, a PoU-resolve-count runtime
signal; both are reverted here in favor of an unconditional type check,
gating AbsentRep to erd.isSimpleType and letting all complex-type
failures fall through to the existing MissingItem/FailureUnspecified
handling, which performs a genuine full backtrack.

Also updates the emptyElementDetectionAssertion idiom across
SepTests.tdml to the bare pattern-discriminator form used in production
schemas.

DAFFODIL-3094
Removes the erd.isSimpleType restriction added by 485fc8b (gating
AbsentRep on a failed zero-length attempt to simple types only) and
restores the original comment, making this method byte-identical to its
state before any DAFFODIL-3094 work. The complex-type separator-retention
problem this guarded against needs a different fix, built at the caller
(SeparatedParseHelper's separator-handling code) instead of baking a type
check into this shared classify method, which should stay untouched so
its behavior is easy to reason about independently of caller-side
verification logic.

DAFFODIL-3094
… sequences

Complex-typed elements determine zero length from bit-position bookkeeping
alone, which nested backtracking makes unreliable. Adds a non-consuming
scanner (ZeroLengthDelimiterScanner/ZeroLengthComplexTypeDelimitedParser)
that checks for a genuine in-scope delimiter where such an element's
content would begin, consulted on the failure path.

A potentially-trailing occurrence can fail on real content, backtracking
its whole attempt including its separator; if the next sibling then
succeeds, that separator was silently reused. Adds a check to
arrayCompleteChecks (previously only for separatorSuppressionPolicy='never')
via a new priorSiblingResultOfTry that survives a repeating child's own
inner loop, left Uninitialized for a multi-occurrence sibling whose final
probe is expected to fail.

separatorSuppressionPolicy='anyEmpty' also requires a zero-length
occurrence to omit its separator; a matching check uses a new
pstate.lastSeparatorWasFound, gated off occursCountKind
'parsed'/'stopValue'.

Updated tests.

DAFFODIL-3094
@olabusayoT
olabusayoT force-pushed the daf-3094-absentrep-backtrack branch from b499806 to 80f9b07 Compare September 15, 2026 20:35
…ling occurrences under 'never', 'trailingEmpty', and 'trailingEmptyStrict'.

Term.scala's couldBePotentiallyTrailing excluded any element carrying its own
discriminator, so such elements fell back to plain Positional classification,
silently skipping the separator-suppression check entirely regardless of
policy. SequenceChild.scala now classifies these as
PositionalNever/PositionalTrailingLax/PositionalTrailingStrict too, matching
how potentially-trailing elements under the same policies are already
handled, and restoring the intended enforcement for discriminator-bearing
elements.

Also removes the anyEmpty-specific arrayCompleteChecks check and its
supporting plumbing (lastSeparatorWasFound/lastAttemptSeparatorWasFound,
isAnyEmptySeparatorSuppressionPolicy), since it was based on a misreading of
the spec's permissive "may be omitted" wording for 'anyEmpty', unlike the
"must" wording for 'trailingEmptyStrict'. Adds test_sep_ssp_any_5 through
_8 and updates never_/strict_ expectations to match corrected behavior.

Also fixes NonPositional (anyEmpty) failed zero-length occurrences always
classifying as MissingItem, discarding a separator that genuinely belonged
to them; this broke real-world schemas mixing skipped optional elements
with real separators. computeParseAttemptStatus now threads a
separatorWasFound flag, and returns AbsentRep instead when another
separator immediately follows (peeked via the new
PState.probeNonDestructively), scoped to non-array occurrences since a
repeating array's own loop can claim further separators itself. Also fixes
an engine abort when a discriminator resolves the PoU on the same attempt
that classifies AbsentRep, and corrects a wrong expected value in
test_sep_ssp_any_7's fixture.

DAFFODIL-3094
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3 participants