core editor processing .xlsx provides error when <x>.xpt tab is included but <x>.xpt not in the Datasets tab - ref CG0555

[mhungria]

It appears to be a difference between the core editor execution and the CLI corresponding .xlsx processing. I assume it is a bug in the core editor.

• core editor processing .xlsx file produces error when .xpt tab is included but .xpt not in the Datasets tab.
• CLI execution with the same file is clean, just doesn't process data not listed in the Datasets tab.

Note the cli execution is as I recall the processing was in the core editor a while back.

Error from rule editor, zip with all artifacts:

cg0555_coreeditor_error.zip

Clean execution from CLI (v0.14.2, linux):

bash_core_val_None_admintempval_2026-02-08.json
CLI command:
python3 core.py validate -s SDTMIG -v 3.4 -dv 2.1 -dxp .../tempv/data/define.xml -vx y -dp .../tempv/data/unit-test-coreid-CG0555-positive-wodm_in_datasets.xlsx --filetype json -o .../tempv/data/val_reports/bash_core_val_None_admintempval_2026-02-08 --output-format JSON --output-format XLSX -l info -p verbose_output -r CDISC.SDTMIG.CG0555 -r CDISC.SDTMIG.CG0556 -r CDISC.SDTMIG.CG0557 -r CDISC.SDTMIG.CG0558 -r CDISC.SDTMIG.CG0559 -lr .../tempv/rules

[alexfurmenkov]

Hi @mhungria , I am bit confused about this ticket, so can you please clarify a couple of questions?

1. The define.xml file in the zip is empty. Can you please share the define.xml file you've used?
2. You've mentioned that CLI doesn't process data not listed in the Datasets tab.

Your rule includes a section:

  Domains:
    Include:
      - PP

And this is the primary reason for the dm.xpt dataset to be skipped.

Given that (especially p.2), can you please clarify what the issue is about?

[mhungria]

Hi @alexfurmenkov ,

1. The define.xml file is in SP for rule CG0555. In any case, you can run it with or without define.xml
2. The .xlsx file has a Datasets tab that only lists 'pp.xpt' and two separate tabs for 'dm.xpt' and 'pp.xpt' (as in the screenshot below). With the CLI command, the engine processes only the 'pp.xpt' file, while the core editor processes the 'dm.xpt' data as well (which is not expected).

[alexfurmenkov]

hi, @SFJohnson24, I suspect that the source of this discrepancy is the rules editor.

when we load xlsx data to test dataset tab, page converts dataset.xlsx to IDataset[] somewhere, and probably ignores datasets tab, sending both pp.xpt and dm.xpt to the TestRule.main(...) function. It validates both dataframes, expectingrequired_keys.
I suppose that problem is in this conversion proccess.

[SFJohnson24]

@alexfurmenkov @mhungria We are beginning the process of decommissioning rule editor in the coming weeks and moving towards github. The behavior your described for engine seems to be how we would expect this to work. Because we are moving away from rule editor and engine seems to have the behavior I would expect given the xlsx, I am closing this issue

[mhungria]

Hi,
@alexfurmenkov , thanks for testing and your response.
@SFJohnson24, happy to hear "We are beginning the process of decommissioning rule editor in the coming weeks and moving towards github ..."