apache/cassandra · error · IllegalArgumentException

Invalid version value

Error message

Invalid version value: ${version}

What it means

CassandraVersion's constructor validates the input string against its semver-like PATTERN (major[.minor[.patch]][-pre][+build]). Non-matching strings are rejected with IllegalArgumentException before any parsing.

Solutions

  1. Normalize the version string to major.minor[-pre][+build] before constructing
  2. Strip a leading 'v' and extra components programmatically
  3. Validate with a regex or CassandraVersion.PATTERN before constructing
  4. Catch IllegalArgumentException and fall back to a lenient parser if flexible input must be accepted

Example fix

// before
CassandraVersion v = new CassandraVersion("v3.11.4.2"); // IllegalArgumentException
// after
String cleaned = version.replaceFirst("^v", "");
String[] parts = cleaned.split("\\.");
CassandraVersion v = new CassandraVersion(String.join(".", Arrays.copyOfRange(parts, 0, Math.min(3, parts.length))));
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// validate before constructing
java.util.regex.Pattern P = java.util.regex.Pattern.compile("\\d+(\\.\\d+(\\.\\d+)?)?([-+][a-zA-Z0-9._-]+)*");
if (!P.matcher(version).matches()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("not a Cassandra version: " + version);

Type guard

static boolean isParsableVersion(String s) {
    try { new org.apache.cassandra.utils.CassandraVersion(s); return true; }
    catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { return false; }
}

Try / catch

try {
    CassandraVersion v = new CassandraVersion(input);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
    // fall back to lenient normalization or reject input
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: new CassandraVersion("...") with strings like "1.0.0.0.0", "v1.2.3", an empty string, or other non-semver formats, e.g., from system.local schema_version parsing, driver metadata, or user input.

Common situations: Parsing version strings with extra components or a leading 'v'; reading a version from a hand-edited config/env var; comparing against versions of other products with different schemes.

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.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eceb53f2b1e8d0f7. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/utils/CassandraVersion.java:105

        this.minor = minor;
        this.patch = patch;
        this.hotfix = hotfix;
        this.preRelease = preRelease;
        this.build = build;
    }

    /**
     * Parse a version from a string.
     *
     * @param version the string to parse
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the provided string does not
     *                                  represent a version
     */
    public CassandraVersion(String version)
    {
        Matcher matcher = PATTERN.matcher(version);
        if (!matcher.matches())
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid version value: " + version);

        try
        {
            this.major = intPart(matcher, "major");
            this.minor = intPart(matcher, "minor");
            this.patch = intPart(matcher, "patch", 0);
            this.hotfix = intPart(matcher, "hotfix", NO_HOTFIX);

            String pr = matcher.group("prerelease");
            String bld = matcher.group("build");

            this.preRelease = pr == null || pr.isEmpty() ? null : parseIdentifiers(version, pr);
            this.build = bld == null || bld.isEmpty() ? null : parseIdentifiers(version, bld);
        }
        catch (NumberFormatException e)
        {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid version value: " + version, e);
        }

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