apache/dolphinscheduler · error · IllegalArgumentException

Invalid parent path

Error message

Invalid parent path 

What it means

IllegalArgumentException thrown by KeyUtils.isParent when the parentPath argument is null or empty. isParent computes a path-prefix relationship by splitting on '/', which is meaningless for an empty parent, so the method fails fast.

Source

Thrown at dolphinscheduler-registry/dolphinscheduler-registry-plugins/dolphinscheduler-registry-jdbc/src/main/java/org/apache/dolphinscheduler/plugin/registry/jdbc/KeyUtils.java:38

import static com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkNotNull;

import org.apache.dolphinscheduler.registry.api.RegistryConstants;

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;

import lombok.experimental.UtilityClass;

@UtilityClass
public class KeyUtils {

    /**
     * Whether the path is the parent path of the child
     * <p> Only the parentPath is the parent path of the childPath, return true
     * <p> If the parentPath is equal to the childPath, return false
     */
    public static boolean isParent(final String parentPath, final String childPath) {
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(parentPath)) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid parent path " + parentPath);
        }
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(childPath)) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid child path " + childPath);
        }
        final String[] parentSplit = removeLastSlash(parentPath).split(RegistryConstants.PATH_SEPARATOR);
        final String[] childSplit = removeLastSlash(childPath).split(RegistryConstants.PATH_SEPARATOR);
        // If the parent path is longer than or equals the child path, it is impossible to be the parent path of the
        // child path
        if (parentSplit.length >= childSplit.length) {
            return false;
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < parentSplit.length; i++) {
            if (!parentSplit[i].equals(childSplit[i])) {
                return false;
            }
        }
        return true;

View on GitHub (pinned to 02eac45a1b)

Solutions

1. Ensure the subscribe path is non-empty before registering the listener
2. Validate root/path configuration values are set and non-empty
3. Guard the call: check StringUtils.isNotEmpty(parentPath) first
4. Fix upstream code that builds the path so it cannot produce an empty string

Example fix

// before
boolean match = KeyUtils.isParent(subscribePath, eventPath);
// after
if (StringUtils.isNotEmpty(subscribePath)) {
    boolean match = KeyUtils.isParent(subscribePath, eventPath);
}

if (parentPath == null || parentPath.isEmpty()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("parentPath must be non-empty");

try { match = KeyUtils.isParent(parentPath, childPath); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { log.warn("bad path arg: {}", e.getMessage()); match = false; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling KeyUtils.isParent("", child) or with null, typically from the change-listener adapter's scope matching when the subscription path was never set or is empty.

Common situations: A listener registered with an empty subscribePath; config where the registry root path is unset; string manipulation upstream that stripped the path to empty.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid child path
• Invalid path
• no master server available
• no master server available
• no master server available

AI-assisted analysis of apache/dolphinscheduler@02eac45a1b (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/05655852ef9fe9cf. Report an issue: GitHub.