This test uses, as part of the environment:

<source select="parse-xml('&lt;root/>')" role="." />

The documentation is clear that role="." means that it should be used as context item, but it is less clear on what happens when there's neither @file attribute, nor <content> element (and also @uri is absent).

Since the @select attribute is present, which is described as creating a subselection into whatever document is loaded by @file (or the <content> element) to serve as initial context item. If this subselection doesn't require a context node itself, there's no reason to force the use of @file or the <content> element.

However, I couldn't find this anywhere specified and this is the only test like this and I'm reluctant to introduce new functionality into the catalog just for convenience of a single test.

This parses correctly with my test-driver, but perhaps we should just:

* use either <content> or @file
* clarify this in the documentation
* create a test in the catalog-verification testset to ensure this