Hi all, I have a work-around for my problem, but there''s clearly something I don''t quite understand going on here and I''d like to learn. I have a model that has a serialized field. In the unit test for that model I''m checking the field contents. In my fixture I have foo: items: "<%=[3,8].to_yaml%>" (thanks to Fred earlier for helping me get the fixtures loading without error - needed the quotes around the yaml) and in the test I have assert things(:foo).items == [3,8] and... the test fails. The problem is that things(:foo).items ends up being an array that has a single element, the string ''3 - 8''. For longer arrays the string becomes ''3 - 8 - 1 - 2 - 3'', for example. I can get around this by explicitly stating the yaml string as manage_domains: "--- \n- 3\n- 8" which leads to the assertion being true... but... it''s inelegant, and I don''t understand why the workaround is even necessary. It would be a lot easier to use and understand if I could get the first version working. From a couple of tests (printing to stdout) I think .to_yaml should be putting in the new-lines, but it seems not to be in this case. Anyone care to enlighten me as to why the first version doesn''t work, please? -Chris W