Reject Malformed Reference

Review ask

As a clinical trial statistician or programmer, challenge anything in this benchmark: describe a problem in Comments, or propose a fix with the Edit button on any source file.

Task: Is this a specification error a study team could realistically make, and should the build stop on it rather than continue?
Inputs: Do they trigger the failure for the reason the summary gives?
Expected failure: Is this the right error, raised at the right point, and would it tell the programmer what to fix?

The other tabs beside Comments are background for assessment, not under review.

Summary

EditUnder reviewWhat this benchmark means

README.md

Goal: build a subject display reference (SUBJREF) from the collected site and subject identifiers.

Input: demographics (DM) records carrying the collected site identifier (SITEID) and the subject identifier for the study (SUBJID).

Variables:

SUBJREF would contain the site and subject identifiers joined by a colon (for example UCSD:0001).

The braced text holds several inputs and punctuation instead of one input name. Reading that text as instructions would make its meaning ambiguous, so the run is rejected before any data is read, and no artifact is accepted.

How to fix

Put punctuation outside the placeholders and give each placeholder exactly one variable name:

derivation:
  str_template: "{SITEID}:{SUBJID}"

This produces values such as UCSD:0001 without evaluating code embedded in the template.

Expected failure

Editthe run is rejected; no artifact is accepted

expected/error.yaml

phase: validation
condition: invalid_string_template
requirement: REQ-0461

expected/error.yaml

phase: validation
condition: invalid_string_template
spec_paths:
  - columns.SUBJREF.derivation.str_template
requirement: REQ-0461
context:
  reason: invalid_placeholder
  placeholder: "SITEID + ':' + SUBJID"

YAML specification

1 spec file

spec.yaml

Edit38 lines

1schema_version: "1.0"2domain: ADSL3keys: [STUDYID, USUBJID]4input:5  DM: input/dm.csv67output:8  path: adsl.csv9  columns: [STUDYID, USUBJID, SUBJREF]1011columns:12  - name: STUDYID13    type: str14    label: Study Identifier15    derivation: DM.STUDYID1617  - name: USUBJID18    type: str19    label: Unique Subject Identifier20    derivation: DM.USUBJID2122  - name: SITEID23    type: str24    label: Study Site Identifier25    derivation: DM.SITEID2627  - name: SUBJID28    type: str29    label: Subject Identifier for the Study30    derivation: DM.SUBJID3132  # The defect: a placeholder names one column, and this one holds an33  # expression, so the spec is rejected before any data is read.34  - name: SUBJREF35    type: str36    label: Subject Display Reference37    derivation:38      str_template: "{SITEID + ':' + SUBJID}"

Inputs

Under review1 source file

input/dm.csv

Edit1 row

input/dm.csv
STUDYID	USUBJID	SITEID	SUBJID
CATH		UCSD	0001

Unexpected Output

Under reviewNo artifact is produced

No fixture files in this directory.

Shaded columns are derived— = missing value

Comments and assessment materials

Dataset Name	Variable Name	Variable Label	Type	Computational Method	Origin
ADSL	STUDYID	Study Identifier	character	Copy value from DM.STUDYID.	Predecessor
ADSL	USUBJID	Unique Subject Identifier	character	Copy value from DM.USUBJID.	Predecessor
ADSL	SUBJREF	Subject Display Reference	character	Fill the template "{SITEID + ':' + SUBJID}".	Derived

Version	Date	Author	Description
1.3	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Show study codelist names, external dictionaries, and ISO 8601 formats in variable rows; list the document's codelist values and metadata
1.2	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Classify ADaM copies from a declared input as Predecessor and recodes as Derived, and SDTM recodes of locally derived columns as Derived
1.1	2026-09-29	yamaa docs build	Resolve lookups into the donor record they select, and give every derivation shape a plain-language rule instead of its raw YAML
1.0		yamaa docs build	Initial generation from spec.yaml

How to fix

input/dm.csv

Comments

Mapping spec