yaml916 B

YAML Norway Problem (Boolean Coercion)

The Norway problem in full: eleven bare words that a YAML 1.1 resolver turns into booleans, a matching quoted control group that survives, and a country-code list where position two silently becomes false. The definitive fixture for resolver-version behaviour.

Config parsing Encoding detection Editor testing

Preview, first 35 linesyaml

# The Norway problem. Under the YAML 1.1 resolver — PyYAML, SnakeYAML's default, Ruby Psych —
# every bare word below on the left of the `unquoted` map resolves to a BOOLEAN. The country
# code for Norway becomes false, `y` and `n` become true and false, and `on`/`off` join them.
# YAML 1.2's core schema resolves only true and false, so most of this stays a string there.
#
# The fix is always the same: quote it. The `quoted` map shows the same values surviving.
unquoted:
  norway: NO
  yes_word: yes
  no_word: no
  on_word: on
  off_word: off
  y_letter: y
  n_letter: n
  true_word: true
  false_word: false
  True_title: True
  OFF_upper: OFF

quoted:
  norway: "NO"
  yes_word: "yes"
  on_word: "on"
  y_letter: "y"

country_codes:
  - GB
  - NO
  - SE
  - FI

expected_note: >-
  Under YAML 1.1 the country_codes list contains a boolean in position two.
  Under YAML 1.2 core it contains four strings.

Specifications

Coerced Under Yaml11: 11
Quoted Controls: 4
Country Code Affected: NO
Yaml12 Core Schema: only true/false resolve as boolean

Testing contract

Expected to recover

Scenario: Load a document containing bare NO, yes, on, off, y and n under each YAML schema version
Expected result: A YAML 1.1 loader returns booleans for all eleven unquoted values including NO, while a YAML 1.2 core-schema loader returns strings for all but true and false

What is a .yaml file?

YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-readable data-serialization format using indentation, key-value pairs, and lists, and is a superset of JSON. It supports comments, anchors, and multiple documents per file, favoring readability for configuration. Its indentation sensitivity makes it error-prone to hand-edit.

How to use this file

Use an example YAML file to test config parsers, indentation and anchor handling, multi-document streams, and safe-loading to avoid arbitrary object construction.

How to use this file for testing

“YAML Norway Problem (Boolean Coercion)” is a deterministic Testaroo fixture for Config parsing, Encoding detection, Editor testing. TOML and INI configuration files with nested sections and typed values, for testing config parsers and loaders.

Documented properties for this file: YAML · 916 bytes. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.

Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such, expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.

Pipeline and infrastructure fixtures are inert configuration: steps reference fictional images and scripts, and nothing here executes. Run your linter, schema validator, migrator, or policy engine against them, and expect the deprecated-syntax and intentionally invalid variants to be rejected.

Point your config loader at the file and assert it reads the documented sections and typed values, including any deliberately-tricky nesting or comments.

Code examples

import yaml  # pip install pyyaml

with open("norway-problem.yaml") as f:
    data = yaml.safe_load(f)
print(data)

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