Tests failing if current Culture setting does not use decimal point separator

[jhm-ciberman]

Describe the bug
I just cloned the repo for the first time to contribute, and tried to run the test suite and it fails. I don't know if I am missing some step or what could be happening.

To Reproduce

• git clone git@github.com:aaubry/YamlDotNet.git && cd YamlDotNet
• git submodule update --init
• dotnet restore
• dotnet test

dotnet test results

https://gist.github.com/jhm-ciberman/2dbfe53d6aa41e10e61e0dbb9fea4d5a

I pasted it in a gist because it was too long to include it in the issue. (65536+ chars)

Environment:

$ dotnet --version
7.0.104
$ git --version
git version 2.37.3.windows.1

[EdwardCooke]

Have you made any changes to the code? These tests run every time code is merged on both windows and Linux machines without any problems.

[jhm-ciberman]

Nope. I cloned the repository at master as it is.

Reading the logs in detail it looks the failing test is the same, just repeated multiple times:

[xUnit.net 00:00:02.79]     ConformsWithYamlSpec(name: "YD5X", description: "Spec Example 2.5. Sequence of Sequences", inputFile: "C:\\repos\\YamlDotNet\\YamlDotNet.Test\\yaml-test-"..., outputFile: "C:\\repos\\YamlDotNet\\YamlDotNet.Test\\yaml-test-"..., error: False, quoting: True) [FAIL]
  Failed ConformsWithYamlSpec(name: "YD5X", description: "Spec Example 2.5. Sequence of Sequences", inputFile: "C:\\repos\\YamlDotNet\\YamlDotNet.Test\\yaml-test-"..., outputFile: "C:\\repos\\YamlDotNet\\YamlDotNet.Test\\yaml-test-"..., error: False, quoting: True) [20 ms]
  Error Message:
   Assert.Equal() Failure
                                     ↓ (pos 57)
Expected: ···cGwire\r\n  - 65\r\n  - 0.278\r\n- - Sammy Sosa\r\n  - 63\r\n  - 0.288\r···
Actual:   ···cGwire\r\n  - 65\r\n  - 278\r\n- - Sammy Sosa\r\n  - 63\r\n  - 288\r\n
                                     ↑ (pos 57)
  Stack Trace:
     at YamlDotNet.Test.Spec.SerializerSpecTests.ConformsWithYamlSpec(String name, String description, String inputFile, String outputFile, Boolean error, Boolean quoting) in C:\repos\YamlDotNet\YamlDotNet.Test\Spec\SerializerSpecTests.cs:line 119
   at InvokeStub_SerializerSpecTests.ConformsWithYamlSpec(Object, Object, IntPtr*)
   at System.Reflection.MethodInvoker.Invoke(Object obj, IntPtr* args, BindingFlags invokeAttr)

It looks a float parsing error I think. Could it be something related to the Culture of the system? I'm running Windows with a regional settings set to Argentina (My country). We use , (comma) as decimal separator instead of . decimal point.

[jhm-ciberman]

I just reproduced. I changed my regional settings to English (United States) and run dotnet test and now it passes fine:

[EdwardCooke]

That was my next question after noticing the comma instead of a period in the exponential number of one of the failed tests. I think we can specify the culture at the process level when the test run starts so they can run in any country, maybe. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with globalization and localization in any of my projects.

I know the en_US culture works. Not sure how that plays on Linux/windows in other cultures without it installed in the OS though.

I can make an attempt at testing it and try and find a workaround but it could be some time before I get a solution in place. If you would like to work on it let me know. Interesting problem.

[EdwardCooke]

Can you try adding this to the test csproj and see if the tests pass in your culture?

https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/main/docs/design/features/globalization-invariant-mode.md#enabling-the-invariant-mode

[jhm-ciberman]

It fails

CultureNotFoundException : Only the invariant culture is supported in globalization-invariant mode. See https://aka.ms/GlobalizationInvariantMode for more information.

[xUnit.net 00:00:01.55]     Given_Values_WithLocale_WriteYaml_ShouldReturn_Result(year: 2016, month: 12, day: 31, hour: 3, minute: 0, second: 0, kind: Utc, locale: "es-ES") [FAIL]
  Failed Given_Values_WithLocale_WriteYaml_ShouldReturn_Result(year: 2016, month: 12, day: 31, hour: 3, minute: 0, second: 0, kind: Utc, locale: "ko-KR") [2 ms]
  Error Message:
   System.Globalization.CultureNotFoundException : Only the invariant culture is supported in globalization-invariant mode. See https://aka.ms/GlobalizationInvariantMode for more information. (Parameter 'name')
ko-KR is an invalid culture identifier.
  Stack Trace:
     at System.Globalization.CultureInfo..ctor(String name, Boolean useUserOverride)
   at YamlDotNet.Test.Serialization.DateTimeConverterTests.Given_Values_WithLocale_WriteYaml_ShouldReturn_Result(Int32 year, Int32 month, Int32 day, Int32 hour, Int32 minute, Int32 second, DateTimeKind kind, String locale) in C:\repos\YamlDotNet\YamlDotNet.Test\Serialization\DateTimeConverterTests.cs:line 522
   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Void** arguments, Signature sig, Boolean isConstructor)
   at System.Reflection.MethodInvoker.Invoke(Object obj, IntPtr* args, BindingFlags invokeAttr)

---

But, I want to share some insights. The problem it seems are the tests that use object.ToString(). I tested this in a REPL console using my current culture (es-AR):

> var ic = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;

> (2.70).ToString()
"2,7"             // Uses comma
> (2.70).ToString(ic)
"2.7"             // Uses point
> var value = 2.7;

> value.ToString()
"2,7"            // Uses comma
> string.Format(ic, "{0}", value)
"2.7"            // Uses point

The test that fails are SerializerSpecTests.ConformsWithYamlSpec for float and double, and DeserializerTest.DeserializeScalarEdgeCases for multiple specs

The ConformsWithYamlSpec uses ToString inside the test so it could be the test itself that is culture dependent.

In the other hand, for DeserializeScalarEdgeCases I don't see it uses ToString in the test itself, but rather inside the serializer. Maybe it's the serializer that is culture sensitive, in that case, it could be a bug.

[EdwardCooke]

Ok. My next suggestion would be to set the globalization to en_US at the process level when the test runner starts

[jhm-ciberman]

I got fixed DeserializeScalarEdgeCases. The fix is easy as use an invariant culture in the test:

  [Theory]
  [MemberData(nameof(DeserializeScalarEdgeCases_TestCases))]
  public void DeserializeScalarEdgeCases(IConvertible value, Type type)
  {
      var deserializer = new DeserializerBuilder().Build();
+     var stringValue = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0}", value);
-     var result = deserializer.Deserialize(value.ToString(), type);
+     var result = deserializer.Deserialize(stringValue, type);
  
      result.Should().Be(value);
  }

I will keep searching the root cause for ConformsWithYamlSpec

[jhm-ciberman]

I discovered the bug. In was a bug with the ScalarNodeDeserializer. So I think it's an important bug. I will make a PR with both fixes.