apache/cassandra · error · java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

%s is not a valid data resource name

Error message

%s is not a valid data resource name

What it means

DataResource.fromName parses a slash-delimited resource name (e.g. 'data', 'data/ks', 'data/ks/table') back into a DataResource. It throws IllegalArgumentException when the first segment is not 'data' or the name has more than 3 segments, i.e. the string is not a syntactically valid data resource name.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/auth/DataResource.java:146

     * @return DataResource instance representing the column family.
     */
    public static DataResource table(String keyspace, String table)
    {
        return new DataResource(Level.TABLE, keyspace, table);
    }

    /**
     * Parses a data resource name into a DataResource instance.
     *
     * @param name Name of the data resource.
     * @return DataResource instance matching the name.
     */
    public static DataResource fromName(String name)
    {
        String[] parts = StringUtils.split(name, '/');

        if (!parts[0].equals(ROOT_NAME) || parts.length > 3)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(String.format("%s is not a valid data resource name", name));

        if (parts.length == 1)
            return root();

        if (parts.length == 2)
            return keyspace(parts[1]);

        if ("*".equals(parts[2]))
            return allTables(parts[1]);

        return table(parts[1], parts[2]);
    }

    /**
     * @return Printable name of the resource.
     */
    public String getName()
    {

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Print the offending name and verify it starts with 'data' and has 1-3 slash-separated segments
2. Strip or correct extra path segments so the name is 'data', 'data/<keyspace>' or 'data/<keyspace>/<table>','or use the typed factories DataResource.root()/keyspace()/table() instead of parsing strings
3. Confirm the string is actually a data resource and not a function/jmx/role resource; use the matching Resource class's fromName

Example fix

// before
DataResource r = DataResource.fromName("data/ks/tbl/col");
// after
DataResource r = DataResource.table("ks", "tbl");

boolean isValidDataResourceName(String name) {
    String[] parts = name.split("/");
    return parts.length >= 1 && parts.length <= 3 && "data".equals(parts[0]);
}

try { DataResource r = DataResource.fromName(name); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { log.error("bad data resource name: {}", name, e); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DataResource.fromName with a name like 'data/ks/table/col' (4 parts), a misspelled root such as 'dat/ks', an empty string, or a resource name captured/stored with a wrong prefix (e.g. a JMX or function resource name passed by mistake).

Common situations: Replaying stored GRANT/LIST PERMISSIONS output after a version change; hand-editing role/resource names in scripts; tools that serialize resources from other auth dimensions (functions, JMX, roles) and mislabel them as data resources.

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

• %s is not a valid function resource name
• %s is not a valid function resource name. It must end with "
• %s is not a valid JMX resource name
• REVOKE operation is not supported by AllowAllAuthorizer
• In this context function name must be explictly qualified by

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3b6b865c02c3b126. Report an issue: GitHub.