apache/hadoop · error · IOException

Unable to parse relative time value of {}: {} is not a numbe

Error message

Unable to parse relative time value of {}: {} is not a number

What it means

DFSUtil.parseRelativeTime strips the last character as the unit and requires the remainder to be a long. If Long.parseLong fails on the prefix, it throws 'X is not a number'. The prefix must be pure digits.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DFSUtil.java:1690

   */
  public static String durationToString(long durationMs) {
    return DFSUtilClient.durationToString(durationMs);
  }

  /**
   * Converts a relative time string into a duration in milliseconds.
   */
  public static long parseRelativeTime(String relTime) throws IOException {
    if (relTime.length() < 2) {
      throw new IOException("Unable to parse relative time value of " + relTime
          + ": too short");
    }
    String ttlString = relTime.substring(0, relTime.length()-1);
    long ttl;
    try {
      ttl = Long.parseLong(ttlString);
    } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
      throw new IOException("Unable to parse relative time value of " + relTime
          + ": " + ttlString + " is not a number");
    }
    if (relTime.endsWith("s")) {
      // pass
    } else if (relTime.endsWith("m")) {
      ttl *= 60;
    } else if (relTime.endsWith("h")) {
      ttl *= 60*60;
    } else if (relTime.endsWith("d")) {
      ttl *= 60*60*24;
    } else {
      throw new IOException("Unable to parse relative time value of " + relTime
          + ": unknown time unit " + relTime.charAt(relTime.length() - 1));
    }
    return ttl*1000;
  }

  /**

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Use only decimal digits before the unit: 30s, 10m, 12h, 7d
2. For compound durations, precompute a single value (e.g. 1d12h -> 36h)
3. Remove stray characters/symbols from the value

Example fix

// before
hdfs cacheadmin -addDirective -ttl 10d5
// after
hdfs cacheadmin -addDirective -ttl 252h

static boolean isParsableRelativeTime(String s) {
  return s != null && s.matches("\\d+[smhd]");
}

catch (IOException e) around DFSUtil.parseRelativeTime; on 'is not a number' reject the input at the CLI boundary and ask for digits + unit rather than propagating.

When it happens

Trigger: TTL strings whose leading part is non-numeric or contains extra characters: 'xs' (prefix 'x'), '-s' (prefix '-'), '1s2m' (prefix '1s2'), or empty prefix variants like 's'. Hit via `hdfs cacheadmin -addDirective -ttl` or AdminHelper max-ttl parsing.

Common situations: Typos and mixed units in TTL arguments ('10d5'); negative or symbolic values like '-1s', 'onem'; copy-paste from docs with typographic characters.

Understand the failure class

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

Related errors

• Unable to parse relative time value of {}: too short
• Unable to parse relative time value of {}: unknown time unit
• "{}" is not a valid value for a quota.
• Cannot parse nsQuota: {}
• Cannot parse ssQuota: {}

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/09d405ec99bd2302. Report an issue: GitHub.