Random Selection Failure - to-spec at line is evaluated to multiple nodes

Question

Hi,
Has anybody come across a situation were an assign activity fails with an
"Exception is thrown because the to-spec at line 113 is evaluated to multiple nodes"
The problem is that an element in a variable appears more than once although it is restricted to maxOccurs="1".
e.g
<variable>
<outputVariable>
<part name="payload" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Output xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/MyApp/MySchema">
<result/>
<result/>
</Output>
</part>
</outputVariable>
</variable>
The result element has a maxOccurs="1" in the xsd and the operation in the assign activity is a copy not an append!
The problem is not consistent and happens randomly with the same set of data.

Answer 1

Hi I understand the workaround here (adding [1] to the to-spec expression) - but what about the extra empty nodes, when we move to the next step in our process will those empty nodes still exist - since our XSD sets that node to maxOcurrs="1" this would cause issues down stream if these empty nodes are carried forward - we are thinking of putting in a XSLT to remove them, but wanted to see if anyone has input on if they will be carried forward - since this is a random issue ware not able to reproduce it in our dev/test environment, it seems to only happen in our Production environment.