Novus Examples, Real, documented example files for testing

xUnit.net — v2 Assembly Results

The xUnit.net v2 shape: an <assemblies> root holding one assembly, whose tests are grouped into collections rather than classes. Result values are Pass, Fail and Skip with capital initials, which trips converters doing a case-sensitive comparison against the lowercase values every other format uses. Reports the same canonical run as the JUnit dialect files: 12 tests, 9 passed, 1 assertion failure, 1 error and 1 skip.

File: XML · Runners · UTF-8
Use case: Conversion testingLog parsing+1· Conversion set

XZ - XZ Single File

A single text file compressed with xz/LZMA — the container-free codec on its own, for testing decompression and codec detection.

File: XZ · Compressed · xz/LZMA
Use case: Conversion testing

YAML — Intentionally Invalid (Lint Fixture)

Intentionally invalid YAML indentation for parser error fixtures. Labelled intentionally invalid in title and description.

File: YML · YAML
Use case: Error handlingCode parsing+1

YAML Anchors and Aliases

Anchors and aliases across mapping, sequence and scalar nodes, including an anchor nested inside another anchored node. The point most tooling misses: an alias is a reference to the same node, so a shallow-loading parser can share mutable state between jobs.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Block Scalars and Chomping Indicators

Every block-scalar variation in one file: literal and folded styles, all three chomping indicators, an explicit indentation indicator, a folded block with a paragraph break, and an embedded shell-shaped script whose own indentation must survive.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Bounded Anchor Reuse

Nested anchor reuse kept deliberately small: two anchors, six references, thirty-one expanded nodes. It is here to test alias resolution and expansion accounting on a safe input, and is explicitly not a billion-laughs expansion bomb.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Directives and Comments

A two-document stream where each document declares its own %YAML directive and the second adds a %TAG handle used by a local tag. Comments appear in every position they are legal, and every one of them is lost by a non-round-tripping loader.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Duplicate Keys

Duplicate keys at three nesting levels, including a duplicated top-level sequence. The spec forbids them; most loaders keep the last silently, a few keep the first, and strict linters reject the document. The file publishes the last-wins answer.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Explicit and Local Tags

Explicit tags across the standard set — !!str, !!float, !!int, !!bool, !!null, !!binary, !!timestamp, !!omap, !!set — alongside two application-local ! tags. CI dialects use local tags in the wild, so a pipeline parser has to decide whether to reject, ignore, or resolve them.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Flow and Block Styles

Flow (JSON-like) and block collections expressing the same structures, nested inside one another in both directions, plus a flow mapping wrapped across lines and a line of strict JSON — which is valid YAML, and a useful check on a parser's JSON-subset claim.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Implicit Typing Traps

Twenty-two unquoted values whose type depends entirely on the resolver. The worst is the leading zero: 0755 is 493 under YAML 1.1 and 755 under YAML 1.2, so both resolvers return a number and they return different ones. Also covers base-60 times, a version that loses its trailing zero, an integer past IEEE-754 precision, dates, and .inf / .nan.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Indentation Variants

The indentation styles that all parse identically and that formatters fight over: sequences flush with their key versus indented under it, two-space against four-space maps, and deliberately irregular but legal nesting. For testing formatters and idempotency.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Merge Keys and Precedence

Merge keys with their full precedence rules: local keys beat merged ones, and in a merge sequence the earlier alias wins. The file publishes the expected merged values, and a strict YAML 1.2 loader produces none of them because 1.2 dropped << from the core schema.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Multi-Document Stream

A five-document stream with explicit end markers, a comment-only document that loads as null, and a bare sequence as a whole document. The single-document API returns only the first, which is how multi-object manifests silently lose objects.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Non-ASCII Keys and Values

Non-ASCII keys and values across Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, CJK and emoji, plus a key containing a zero-width space and a value distinguishing a combining acute from the precomposed character. Written as UTF-8 with no BOM.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases · UTF-8, no BOM
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

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.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Null and Empty Values

Five spellings of null against the things routinely confused with it: empty strings, empty collections, and a key written with no value at all. Includes a sequence containing a hole, an empty string and two nulls in a row.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Quoting Styles and Escapes

All three scalar quoting styles side by side: plain scalars and what they cannot contain, single quotes where backslashes stay literal and '' means one quote, and double quotes as the only style that processes \t, \n and \uXXXX escapes.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML Unclosed Flow Collection, Intentionally Invalid

An intentionally invalid YAML file whose flow sequence is opened and never closed, so the parser consumes the rest of the document and fails at end of stream. A good error message names the opening bracket, not the last line, which is what this fixture measures.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Error handlingConfig parsing+1

YAML with a UTF-8 Byte Order Mark

A YAML file beginning with a UTF-8 byte order mark, which the spec permits at the start of a stream. A parser that does not strip it reads the first key as \ufeffname, so the lookup misses and the document appears to be missing its name field.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases · UTF-8 with BOM
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML with CRLF Line Endings

A YAML file written with CRLF line endings, which the spec accepts as a line break. A parser that splits on \n alone leaves a stray carriage return at the end of every plain scalar, so "build" becomes "build\r" and equality checks quietly fail.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases · UTF-8, no BOM
Use case: Config parsingEncoding detection+1

YAML with TAB Indentation, Intentionally Invalid

An intentionally invalid YAML file indented with real TAB characters, which the spec forbids for indentation. The final key shows the legal case — a tab inside a quoted scalar — so a parser can be checked for rejecting one without rejecting the other.

File: YAML · YAML Edge Cases
Use case: Error handlingConfig parsing+1

yarn.lock (Berry, __metadata version 8)

A modern Yarn Berry lockfile: YAML-shaped with an __metadata header, npm: protocol resolutions and cache-key-prefixed checksums — deliberately different from the Classic file in the same family. Every package, version, hash and licence is fictional — the tree describes nothing real.

File: LOCK · Lockfiles
Use case: Config parsingConversion testing+1· Conversion set

yarn.lock (Classic v1)

A Yarn 1 lockfile in its own line-oriented grammar — quoted descriptor headers, two-space indented fields, resolved URLs with a SHA-1 fragment — which looks like YAML but is not. Every package, version, hash and licence is fictional — the tree describes nothing real.

File: LOCK · Lockfiles
Use case: Config parsingConversion testing+1· Conversion set

Explore the test library

Filter the library

5297 results