Regarding the test, ocke_rel, for occursCountKind=”expression” in daffodil-test\src\test\scala-debug\daffodil\section23\dfdl_expressions\TestDFDLExpressionsDebug.scala:

Mike Beckerle's comments:

Oh wow. This test fails because it has dfdl:occursCount="

{...} "

Note the white spaces before { and after }.

If you take those out so it is dfdl:occursCount="{...}

" then the test passes.

So, there is a bug here that there is no reasonable diagnostic at all.

Technically, if { is not the very first character of the property value, then you gave it a string as the value, not an expression.

I suggest the issue should be fixed in CompiledExpression, which should do a better job helping find this kind of error.