apache/cassandra · error · IllegalStateException

Unable to parse value

Error message

Unable to parse value %s

What it means

GuardrailsConfigCommand.getNumber applies a numeric transformer (e.g. Integer.parseInt) to the user-supplied option value. If the value is not a valid number, NumberFormatException is caught and rethrown as IllegalStateException with 'Unable to parse value <value>'. This means the CLI argument passed for a numeric guardrail property is not parseable as the expected number type.

Solutions

1. Pass a plain unformatted number, e.g. `--warning-threshold=5000`
2. Strip units/separators/whitespace before passing the value in scripts
3. Verify the property actually expects a number and not a set/string value
4. Check the exception's cause (NumberFormatException) for the exact offending string

Example fix

// before
nodetool guardrails-config set read-risk --warning-threshold="5,000"
// after
nodetool guardrails-config set read-risk --warning-threshold=5000

// validate numeric shell variable before passing to nodetool
[[ "$VAL" =~ ^-?[0-9]+$ ]] || { echo "VAL must be an integer"; exit 1; }

try { runNodetool("guardrails-config","set",prop,"--warning-threshold="+val); } catch (IllegalStateException e) { log("Bad numeric value: " + val, e); }

When it happens

Trigger: `nodetool guardrails-config` set with a numeric property given a non-numeric value, e.g. `--warning-threshold=ten` or `5,000` with a thousands separator; an empty string; negative sign mistakes or locale-specific formatting.

Common situations: Typing a percentage with a % sign, using comma thousands separators, pasting values with trailing whitespace, or setting a value to text by accident in shell scripts.

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.

Related errors

• argument for top must be a positive integer.
• arguments for -F are json,yaml only.
• Can not parse replication factor
• Keyspace [ ] does not exist.
• Number of commands to display has to be at least 1.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f8795e6ed8c6640. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/tools/nodetool/GuardrailsConfigCommand.java:349

            }
            else
            {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(format("unsupported type: %s", targetType));
            }
        }

        private <T> T getNumber(String value, Function<String, T> transformer, T defaultValue)
        {
            if (value == null || value.equals("null"))
                return defaultValue;

            try
            {
                return transformer.apply(value);
            }
            catch (NumberFormatException ex)
            {
                throw new IllegalStateException(format("Unable to parse value %s", value), ex);
            }
        }
    }

    private static final Pattern CAMEL_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("([a-z])([A-Z])");

    /**
     * Special map for methods which do not adhere to camel-case convention precisely.
     * These will be translated manually.
     */
    private static final Map<String, String> toSnakeCaseTranslationMap = Map.of("ZeroTTLOnTWCSEnabled", "zero_ttl_on_twcs_enabled",
                                                                                "ZeroTTLOnTWCSWarned", "zero_ttl_on_twcs_warned",
                                                                                "FieldsPerUDTFailThreshold", "fields_per_udt_fail_threshold",
                                                                                "FieldsPerUDTWarnThreshold", "fields_per_udt_warn_threshold",
                                                                                "FieldsPerUDTThreshold", "fields_per_udt_threshold",
                                                                                "SimpleStrategyEnabled", "simplestrategy_enabled",
                                                                                "NonPartitionRestrictedQueryEnabled", "non_partition_restricted_index_query_enabled");

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