larksuite/cli · error · ValueError

expected boolean

Error message

expected boolean

What it means

builtin_scalar_value converts a lexical string into the Python value for a built-in XML Schema type. For xs:boolean it accepts only 'true', 'false', '1', '0' (the full XSD lexical space); anything else raises ValueError('expected boolean') so schema validation reports the node's value as type-invalid rather than silently coercing it.

Source

Thrown at skills/lark-slides/scripts/sxsd_validator.py:489

        "code": code,
        "path": path,
        "tag": tag,
        "expected": expected,
        "actual": actual,
        "message": message,
        "hint": hint,
    }
    if attr is not None:
        result["attr"] = attr
    return result


def builtin_scalar_value(type_name: str, value: str) -> Decimal | str | bool:
    if type_name in {"string", "anyURI"}:
        return value
    if type_name == "boolean":
        if value not in {"true", "false", "1", "0"}:
            raise ValueError("expected boolean")
        return value in {"true", "1"}
    if type_name in {"integer", "positiveInteger", "nonNegativeInteger"}:
        if re.fullmatch(r"[+-]?\d+", value) is None:
            raise ValueError("expected integer")
        number = Decimal(value)
        if type_name == "positiveInteger" and number <= 0:
            raise ArithmeticError("expected positive integer")
        if type_name == "nonNegativeInteger" and number < 0:
            raise ArithmeticError("expected non-negative integer")
        return number
    if type_name in {"double", "decimal"}:
        lexical_value = value.strip(" \t\n\r")
        decimal_pattern = r"[+-]?(?:[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]*)?|\.[0-9]+)"
        double_pattern = decimal_pattern + r"(?:[eE][+-]?[0-9]+)?"
        expected_pattern = double_pattern if type_name == "double" else decimal_pattern
        if re.fullmatch(expected_pattern, lexical_value) is None:
            raise ValueError(f"expected {type_name}")
        try:

View on GitHub (pinned to 7fd6ef3c07)

Solutions

1. Fix the source value to one of the XSD-legal literals: true, false, 1, or 0 (case-sensitive, all lowercase).
2. Fix the serializer: use str(value).lower() or ('true' if value else 'false') when writing boolean fields, not str(value).
3. Pre-validate the string in the caller before invoking the validator (see validationCode) to produce a clearer message.
4. If the field should not be boolean, correct the schema (or the type name passed to the validator) to string and re-run.

Example fix

// before
xml = f"<flag>{str(enabled)}</flag>"   # writes 'True' -> ValueError: expected boolean

// after
xml = f"<flag>{'true' if enabled else 'false'}</flag>"

def is_xsd_boolean(value: str) -> bool:
    return value in {"true", "false", "1", "0"}

if not is_xsd_boolean(raw):
    raise SystemExit(f"{raw!r} is not an XSD boolean literal (use true/false/1/0)")

def is_xsd_boolean(value: str) -> bool:
    return value in {"true", "false", "1", "0"}

try:
    parsed = builtin_scalar_value("boolean", raw)
except ValueError as err:
    if str(err) == "expected boolean":
        raw = {"yes": "true", "no": "false"}.get(raw.strip().lower(), raw)
        if not is_xsd_boolean(raw):
            raise SystemExit(f"invalid boolean literal: {raw!r}") from None
        parsed = builtin_scalar_value("boolean", raw)
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Validating a document where an element/attribute of schema type boolean has a lexical value outside {true, false, 1, 0} — e.g. 'yes', 'no', 'TRUE', 'on', 'True', or an empty string — via scalar_value_for_type/value_error_for_type in the sxsd validator.

Common situations: Documents generated by code that serializes booleans as 'True'/'False' (Python str(bool)) or 'yes'/'no' (config-style); hand-edited XML; locale-specific literals; templates with unfilled placeholders like '{{enabled}}'.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• expected integer
• expected positive integer
• expected non-negative integer
• L1: inputSchema must not be nil
• L1: inputSchema.properties must not be nil

AI-assisted analysis of larksuite/cli@7fd6ef3c07 (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f6c936c90d1040a8. Report an issue: GitHub.