apache/pulsar · error · IllegalArgumentException

time cannot be empty

Error message

time cannot be empty

What it means

Null/empty guard at the top of RelativeTimeUtil.parseRelativeTimeInSeconds: the relativeTime argument is blank (null or empty), so no duration string exists to parse; callers passing an unset CLI option for a relative time (e.g. ttl or retention) hit this validation.

Source

Thrown at pulsar-cli-utils/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/cli/converters/RelativeTimeUtil.java:30

 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */
package org.apache.pulsar.cli.converters;

import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.math.RoundingMode;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import lombok.experimental.UtilityClass;

@UtilityClass
public class RelativeTimeUtil {
    public static long parseRelativeTimeInSeconds(String relativeTime) {
        if (relativeTime.isEmpty()) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("time cannot be empty");
        }

        int lastIndex = relativeTime.length() - 1;
        char lastChar = relativeTime.charAt(lastIndex);
        final char timeUnit;

        if (!Character.isAlphabetic(lastChar)) {
            // No unit specified, assume seconds
            timeUnit = 's';
            lastIndex = relativeTime.length();
        } else {
            timeUnit = Character.toLowerCase(lastChar);
        }

        long duration = Long.parseLong(relativeTime.substring(0, lastIndex));

        switch (timeUnit) {
        case 's':

View on GitHub (pinned to 820761864e)

Solutions

1. Provide a non-empty duration like '30s', '5m', '2h', '7d'

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at pulsar-cli-utils/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/cli/converters/RelativeTimeUtil.java:30 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/pulsar@820761864e (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5f73eb5b64b520cf. Report an issue: GitHub.