SonarSource/sonarqube · error · IllegalArgumentException

Failed to parse number of days:

Error message

Failed to parse number of days: 

What it means

For NUMBER_OF_DAYS New Code Definitions, the value must be a parseable number of days. NewCodeDefinitionResolver.parseDays delegates to NewCodePeriodParser.parseDays and wraps any parse failure in this IllegalArgumentException, appending the offending value to the message.

Solutions

1. Pass a plain integer string, e.g. '30', as the value for NUMBER_OF_DAYS.
2. Strip any units or formatting from the value before sending.
3. Validate the value client-side with a numeric parse before calling the API.

Example fix

// before
setValue("30 days")

// after
setValue("30")

// before sending NUMBER_OF_DAYS value
if (!value.matches("\\d+")) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("Value must be a plain integer number of days");
}

try { NewCodePeriodParser.parseDays(value); } catch (Exception e) { log.error("Not a valid day count: {}", value); }

When it happens

Trigger: getNewCodeDefinitionValueProjectCreation receives a NUMBER_OF_DAYS type whose value string is not an integer (e.g. '30d', 'one month', '', '1,5').

Common situations: Users entering human-friendly durations ('30 days') in the new code period field; locales using comma decimals; API clients passing units with the number.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

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• Could not parse GitLab answer to verify write permission…

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6445c494b6ff6e24. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/sonar-webserver-common/src/main/java/org/sonar/server/common/newcodeperiod/NewCodeDefinitionResolver.java:139

        yield Optional.empty();
      }
      case NUMBER_OF_DAYS -> {
        requireValue(type, value);
        yield Optional.of(parseDays(value));
      }
      case REFERENCE_BRANCH -> {
        Preconditions.checkArgument(value == null, UNEXPECTED_VALUE_ERROR_MESSAGE, type);
        yield Optional.of(defaultBranchName);
      }
      default -> throw new IllegalStateException("Unexpected type: " + type);
    };
  }

  private static String parseDays(String value) {
    try {
      return Integer.toString(NewCodePeriodParser.parseDays(value));
    } catch (Exception e) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Failed to parse number of days: " + value);
    }
  }

  private static void requireValue(NewCodePeriodType type, @Nullable String value) {
    Preconditions.checkArgument(value != null, "New code definition type '%s' requires a newCodeDefinitionValue", type);
  }

  private static NewCodePeriodType parseNewCodeDefinitionType(String typeStr) {
    NewCodePeriodType type;
    try {
      type = NewCodePeriodType.valueOf(typeStr.toUpperCase(Locale.US));
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid type: " + typeStr);
    }
    validateType(type);
    return type;
  }

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