[refactor] Extract assertion-evaluation fixes from #49

[joewiz]

[This response was co-authored with Claude Code. -Joe]

Summary

Small, focused extraction of the assertion-evaluation bug fixes from #49, per @line-o's request to keep this round's changes phone-reviewable and to unblock an RC2 cut. Also folds in the admin-authentication change from #49 (commit 5 below), which is a prerequisite for the in-flight EXPath File built-in extension PR (eXist-db/exist#6257).

8 commits, touching only TestCaseRunnerActor.scala and ExistServer.scala. None overlap with #58. Compile is clean against current develop. XQTS HEAD measured before and after with a companion eXist fix (eXist-db/exist#6409) in place.

What's in scope

#	Commit	Effect
1	[bugfix] Trim expected XML in assertXml to avoid whitespace mismatches	Eliminates false assertXml failures from formatting newlines in catalog CDATA
2	[bugfix] Preserve namespace URI in error code comparison for non-standard namespaces	Matches Q{ns}local-form error codes (e.g. EXPath File Q{http://expath.org/ns/file}is-dir) instead of bare local name
3	[bugfix] Treat assertion evaluation errors as failures, not runner errors	XPathException raised during assertion eval is now a failure (the assertion failed), not an error (the runner crashed)
4	[refactor] Add raw serialization and serialization properties to ExistServer	Supporting refactor for serialization-matches and JSON-output assertions
5	[bugfix] Use admin authentication for embedded server connections	Required for tests touching privileged modules (filesystem etc.). Surfaces 11 pass→fail in XQ 3.1 HEAD under admin — see "Admin-auth behavior changes" below.
6	[bugfix] Handle AllOf assertions containing Error in test case evaluation	Matches error code against Error inside <all-of> (previously only direct Error and <any-of> were handled)
7	[bugfix] Fix XMLUnit comparison argument order and filter ignorable whitespace	Fixes inverted "Expected"/"but was" labels and drops whitespace-only text nodes during XMLUnit diff
8	[bugfix] Pass result as context item for single-item assert evaluations	Fixes XPDY0002 for assertions using the ? lookup operator on single-item results (e.g. ?columns on a parse-csv map)

Commits 1–5 (in chronological order: trim-XML, preserve-NS-URI, errors-as-failures, raw-serialization, admin-auth) cherry-pick cleanly from #49. Commits 6–8 (AllOf-with-Error, XMLUnit-fix, context-item) are hand-rewrites against current develop: their original #49 SHAs modify file regions that exist only on the QT4/Update/XQFTTS base branch and don't apply directly. Each hand-rewrite is the assertion-relevant portion of its source commit; the structural QT4/Update bits were dropped.

What was considered but deferred

#49 commit	Why deferred
[feature] Implement XQTS sandpit support for writable test directories	Structural feature — belongs in the suite-additions wave
[bugfix] Propagate static base URI to assertion evaluation context	Depends on sandpit
copy-modify-return capture (XQUF half of 9a316ac)	Depends on runUpdateTestCase (XQUF)
normalizeWhitespace() plumbing (XQFTTS half of ea771f6)	XQFTTS-specific; pulled the arg-order fix and the whitespace-only filter from the same commit instead
[bugfix] Propagate testCase environment namespaces to assertion queries	Already present on develop via #52 (different design — parameter passing instead of actor-private var) — confirmed redundant

Verification

XQTS HEAD measured before and after using the same shaded exist-core. The "after" measurement is the runner PR + the companion eXist fix #6409 in place:

              BEFORE    AFTER    DELTA
tests          26996    26460       
pass           23999    23555      
fail            1788     1723      
error            147      131      
skip            1062     1054
pass-pct       88.90%   89.02%   +0.12pp

Test movement (transitions where both runs have data):

fail->pass            15    e.g. app-FunctxFn/functx-fn-root-all, app-Walmsley/d1e78807c
error->fail           15    e.g. fn-json-to-xml/json-to-xml-008
pass->fail             5    detailed below
error->pass            1    method-xml/K2-Serialization-17

• The 15 fail→pass are the genuine fixes from commits 1, 6, 7, 8.
• The 15 error→fail are the intentional reclassification from commit 3.
• The 5 pass→fail are detailed below; all 5 are accounted for.

Other verification:

• sbt compile clean (only pre-existing 23 Scala warnings, none introduced)
• mvn test -pl exist-core on develop unchanged by this PR (the runner is consumed by the exist-xqts appassembler bootstrap, not by exist-core's test JVM); 6,592 tests / 0 failures / 0 errors / 106 skipped, 3:39 wall.

Admin-auth behavior changes (commit 5)

Commit 5 changes the embedded server connection from getBroker() (guest) to authenticate("admin", "") (admin). This is a prerequisite for the in-flight EXPath File built-in PR (#6257) — privileged modules need admin to operate. The change surfaces 11 pass→fail transitions in XQ 3.1 HEAD, in three clusters:

Cluster A — fn:environment-variable is dba-only (4 tests):
fn:environment-variable returns the empty sequence for non-dba users. Tests like fn-environment-variable-005 use a defensive guard:

let $all := fn:available-environment-variables()
return empty($all) or ($all = "QTTEST" and fn:environment-variable("QTTEST") eq "42")

Under guest the guard's first clause is true (env vars hidden, function returns ()), so the test passes regardless of fixtures. Under admin the function returns the real env vars, the guard's first clause is false, and the test correctly reports false because the test fixture (QTTEST=42) isn't set in the runner's environment.

These are spec-correct failures revealing a runner-side test-fixture gap, not eXist behavior changes. Affected tests: fn-available-environment-variables-011, fn-environment-variable-005, -006, -007.

Cluster B — lone-slash predicate with admin context (6 tests):
All six are "lone slash" tests of the form fn:count(.[5 * /]) against a single-element source doc. The cause is an eXist optimizer bug where RootNode doesn't declare CONTEXT_ITEM as a dependency; the predicate gets hoisted out of the iteration context, RootNode.eval falls through to the static-context default, and under admin returns content from /db/system/security/. Diagnosed by instrumenting OpNumeric.eval: rseq contains atomized fields from admin.xml, including two RIPEMD160 password hashes. Fixed by #6409 — once that merges, all 6 of these tests flip back to pass.

Affected tests: prod-PathExpr/PathExpr-1, -2, -15 and prod-StepExpr/Steps-leading-lone-slash-15, -17, -1a.

Cluster C — fn-transform-43 (1 test, unrelated):
fn-transform-43 is an fn:transform test that calls parse-xml on a serialized result. Fails in the batched XQTS run only — passes when running fn-transform alone, or fn-transform-43 in isolation. The diff is cross-test-set JVM state pollution (Saxon configuration cache, XSLT compilation cache, or similar), not anything tied to admin auth or this PR's changes. Predates these changes; not blocking; worth a separate look later.

Net assessment with #6409 applied: Cluster A is correct behavior surfaced (4 tests, document); Cluster B is fully fixed (6 tests recovered); Cluster C is a 1-test pre-existing batched-run intermittency. Keeping commit 5 in this PR unblocks the path to EXPath File integration (#6257) and ships strictly positive on the XQTS measurement once #6409 lands.

Suggested merge order

1. Wait for #6409 (the RootNode fix) to merge to eXist develop
2. Wait for exist-core snapshot to publish via the runner's Maven resolution
3. Merge this PR
4. Cut RC2 and let eXist's exist-xqts dep-bump follow

Related

• Source: subset of #49
• Companion eXist fix: eXist-db/exist#6409
• Slack thread: https://exist-db.slack.com/archives/C0824H3C76J/p1779972344112619
• Unblocks: eXist-db/exist#6257 (EXPath File built-in)
• Next waves planned: suite additions (QT4/FTTS/Update), batch runner + perf

[line-o]

Pulling this in and cutting a RC2 afterwards