From 025da8315b070d997bcd439558b483de0537a19a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: no382001 <102482527+no382001@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2026 12:34:31 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] load_xml was returning a single term instead of a list of
 nodes

---
 src/machine/system_calls.rs | 7 ++++++-
 tests-pl/issue3256.pl       | 5 +++++
 tests/scryer/issues.rs      | 9 +++++++++
 3 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 tests-pl/issue3256.pl

diff --git a/src/machine/system_calls.rs b/src/machine/system_calls.rs
index edd08cb5..7453fd33 100644
--- a/src/machine/system_calls.rs
+++ b/src/machine/system_calls.rs
@@ -8450,7 +8450,12 @@ impl Machine {
             match roxmltree::Document::parse(&string.as_str()) {
                 Ok(doc) => {
                     let result = self.xml_node_to_term(doc.root_element())?;
-                    unify!(self.machine_st, self.machine_st.registers[2], result);
+                    let list = sized_iter_to_heap_list(
+                        &mut self.machine_st.heap,
+                        1, // just one root element
+                        std::iter::once(result),
+                    )?;
+                    unify!(self.machine_st, self.machine_st.registers[2], list);
                 }
                 _ => {
                     self.machine_st.fail = true;
diff --git a/tests-pl/issue3256.pl b/tests-pl/issue3256.pl
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..77e0bcff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests-pl/issue3256.pl
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+:- use_module(library(sgml)).
+
+test :- load_xml("<foo><bar>hello</bar></foo>", Es, []), write(Es).
+
+:- initialization(test).
diff --git a/tests/scryer/issues.rs b/tests/scryer/issues.rs
index cb321746..10ca8e24 100644
--- a/tests/scryer/issues.rs
+++ b/tests/scryer/issues.rs
@@ -20,6 +20,15 @@ fn issue2588_load_html() {
     load_module_test("tests-pl/issue2588.pl", "[element(html,[],[element(head,[],[element(title,[],[[H,e,l,l,o,!]])]),element(body,[],[])])]");
 }
 
+#[test]
+#[cfg_attr(miri, ignore = "unsupported operation when isolation is enabled")]
+fn issue3256_load_xml_returns_list() {
+    load_module_test(
+        "tests-pl/issue3256.pl",
+        "[element(foo,[],[element(bar,[],[[h,e,l,l,o]])])]",
+    );
+}
+
 #[test]
 #[cfg_attr(miri, ignore = "unsupported operation when isolation is enabled")]
 fn issue2949_load_html() {
-- 
2.54.0