JUnit XML failure element and attribute are incorrect when using node:assert

Version

v24.4.1

Platform

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

Subsystem

test

What steps will reproduce the bug?

Create any test file, like

import { equal } from "node:assert/strict";
import { test } from "node:test";

const value = 1;

await test("testName", () => {
  equal(value, 0, `The value must be 0`);
});

Run the test via console

node --test --test-reporter=junit ".\junit.test.mts"

Check the report from stdout.

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

Always.

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

failure element should have a correct message attribute. I guess having "The value must be 0" in this example would be fine
testcase element shouldn't have the failure attribute.

What do you see instead?

failure in testcase element and message in failure element are "The value must be 01 !== 0":

        <testcase name="testName" time="0.002234" classname="test" failure="The value must be 01 !== 0">
                <failure type="testCodeFailure" message="The value must be 01 !== 0">
Error [ERR_TEST_FAILURE]: The value must be 0

1 !== 0

    at async file:///C:/code/project/junit.test.mts:6:1 {
  code: 'ERR_TEST_FAILURE',
  failureType: 'testCodeFailure',
  cause: AssertionError [ERR_ASSERTION]: The value must be 0
  
  1 !== 0
  
      at TestContext.&lt;anonymous> (file:///C:/code/project/junit.test.mts:7:3)
      at Test.runInAsyncScope (node:async_hooks:214:14)
      at Test.run (node:internal/test_runner/test:1062:25)
      at Test.start (node:internal/test_runner/test:959:17)
      at startSubtestAfterBootstrap (node:internal/test_runner/harness:332:17)
      at async file:///C:/code/project/junit.test.mts:6:1 {
    generatedMessage: false,
    code: 'ERR_ASSERTION',
    actual: 1,
    expected: 0,
    operator: 'strictEqual'
  }
}
                </failure>
        </testcase>

Additional information

No response

@CuriousStork

@CuriousStork Thanks for reporting this issue. Would you be open to me submitting a PR to help resolve it?

@devholic22

@devholic22 Hello and thank you for taking a look. I would appreciate any help with this issue 👍

Obviously, I'm not a collaborator/maintainer here, so don't know exactly how to do it properly.

@CuriousStork

@CuriousStork I created Pull Request for fix this issue.

In this PR, I’ve removed the failure attribute from the element.
As for the message field, I believe there are multiple possible approaches depending on the intended behavior, so I wanted to propose my suggestion before implementing it.

Here’s the idea:
• If the error message is user-defined (generatedMessage === false), the entire message should be preserved.
• If the message is automatically generated, only the first line (before a newline) should be shown. This avoids mixing user-defined content with system-generated diagnostics.

Originally, the code in lib/internal/test_runner/reporter/junit.js looks like this:

if (event.type === 'test:fail') {
  const error = event.data.details?.error;
  currentTest.children.push({
    __proto__: null,
    nesting: event.data.nesting + 1,
    tag: 'failure',
    attrs: {
      __proto__: null,
      type: error?.failureType || error?.code,
      message: error?.message ?? '',
    },
    children: [inspectWithNoCustomRetry(error, inspectOptions)],
  });
  currentTest.failures = 1;
}

My proposed change is as follows:

if (event.type === 'test:fail') {
  const error = event.data.details?.error;
  let summaryMessage = '';
  if (typeof error?.message === 'string') {
    if (error.generatedMessage === false) {
      summaryMessage = error.message;
    } else {
      summaryMessage = error.message.includes('\n')
        ? error.message.split('\n')[0]
        : error.message;
    }
  }
  currentTest.children.push({
    __proto__: null,
    nesting: event.data.nesting + 1,
    tag: 'failure',
    attrs: {
      __proto__: null,
      type: error?.failureType || error?.code,
      message: summaryMessage,
    },
    children: [inspectWithNoCustomRetry(error, inspectOptions)],
  });
  currentTest.failures = 1;
}

I would appreciate your feedback on whether this approach seems reasonable, or if there’s a better way to handle error message formatting.

@devholic22

@devholic22 Thank you for the pull request.

I guess the cause of the issue is an incorrect attribute escaping. As I understand your idea is to use just the first line of the multiline text. I think we can use the whole multiline text, but fix its encoding/escaping for XML.

I'd suggest checking this piece of code:

node/lib/internal/test_runner/reporter/junit.js

Lines 21 to 23 in f36de72

    
           function escapeAttribute(s = '') { 
        
             return escapeContent(RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/"/g, RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/\n/g, s, ''), '&quot;')); 
        
           }

This seems to replace \n with an empty string '' so far. I'd try to use the correct Line Feed code for XML attributes (
) and see if it works:

function escapeAttribute(s = '') {
  return escapeContent(RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/"/g, RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/\n/g, s, '&#xA;'), '&quot;'));
}

Optimistically this should put the whole multiline string into the attribute instead of its first line. I guess this should work for any alternative assertion module (like chai etc.) and doesn't require checking generatedMessage.

I also noticed that node:assert produces error.message with a trailing \n. Probably removing it via trim() could improve the resulting XML:

message: error?.message.trim() ?? ''

Hello, is anyone working on failure:message attribute fix? I'd like to attempt fixing escapeAttribute function so that it escapes \n instead of erasing it.

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JUnit XML `failure` element and attribute are incorrect when using `node:assert` #59593

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How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

What do you see instead?

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	function escapeAttribute(s = '') {
	return escapeContent(RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/"/g, RegExpPrototypeSymbolReplace(/\n/g, s, ''), '"'));
	}

JUnit XML failure element and attribute are incorrect when using node:assert #59593

Description

Version

Platform

Subsystem

What steps will reproduce the bug?

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

What do you see instead?

Additional information

Activity

devholic22 commented on Aug 24, 2025

CuriousStork commented on Aug 24, 2025

devholic22 commented on Aug 30, 2025

CuriousStork commented on Aug 30, 2025

AlexCannonball commented on Oct 10, 2025

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JUnit XML `failure` element and attribute are incorrect when using `node:assert` #59593