apache/shenyu · error · IllegalArgumentException

is malformed

Error message

 is malformed

What it means

ShenyuClientsRegistrar.getUrl() resolves the @ShenyuClient url attribute (possibly from a property placeholder), strips any trailing slash, and validates it with java.net.URL. If the resolved string is not a well-formed URL, it throws IllegalArgumentException wrapping the MalformedURLException. This fails fast at bean-registration time instead of letting the client fail on its first request.

Solutions

1. Add the scheme prefix, e.g. change url = "localhost:9195" to url = "http://localhost:9195".
2. Ensure the property referenced by ${...} exists in the environment (application.yml, env var) so the placeholder resolves.
3. Print/log the resolved value and fix the exact malformed segment reported in the message (it is prefixed to the error).
4. If the target is not a full URL, use the configured serverList/registerType=local discovery path instead of a static url.

Example fix

// before
@ShenyuClient(name = "order", url = "${shenyu.gateway}") // shenyu.gateway=localhost:9195
// after
@ShenyuClient(name = "order", url = "${shenyu.gateway}") // shenyu.gateway=http://localhost:9195

String url = env.resolvePlaceholders(clientUrl);
if (url == null || url.isBlank() || !url.matches("^https?://[^\s]+")) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("@ShenyuClient url must be a full http(s) URL, got: " + url);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Registering a @ShenyuClient (feign SDK) whose url attribute resolves, after placeholder substitution, to a string java.net.URL cannot parse — e.g. "localhost:8080" (no scheme), "http//host", "${gateway.url}" left unresolved, or an empty/whitespace value.

Common situations: Typo in the url scheme in application.yml; referencing a property that does not exist so the raw placeholder string is passed through; forgetting the http:// prefix; copying a URL with stray characters from docs.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid URL" errors: why new URL(), URI.parse, and reqwest::Url reject your string — missing scheme, whitespace, and bad path format — this error's family across 39 libraries.

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

Related errors

• is malformed
• shenyu.jwt.secretKey is not configured. In a multi-instance…
• clientConfig must config " + getClientName() + " properties
• grpc client must config the contextPath, ipAndPort
• zookeeper url is empty

AI-assisted analysis of apache/shenyu@567142e072 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4e05af9adde2c36e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at shenyu-sdk/shenyu-sdk-feign/src/main/java/org/apache/shenyu/sdk/feign/ShenyuClientsRegistrar.java:409

    /**
     * Gets url.
     * @param url the url
     * @return the url
     */
    static String getUrl(final String url) {
        String resultUrl = url;
        if (StringUtils.hasText(resultUrl) && !(resultUrl.startsWith("#{") && resultUrl.contains("}"))) {
            if (!resultUrl.contains("://")) {
                resultUrl = "http://" + resultUrl;
            }
            if (resultUrl.endsWith("/")) {
                resultUrl = resultUrl.substring(0, resultUrl.length() - 1);
            }
            try {
                new URL(resultUrl);
            } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(resultUrl + " is malformed", e);
            }
        }
        return resultUrl;
    }

    private String getUrl(final ConfigurableBeanFactory beanFactory, final Map<String, Object> attributes) {
        String url = resolve(beanFactory, (String) attributes.get("url"));
        return getUrl(url);
    }

    private String getPath(final ConfigurableBeanFactory beanFactory, final Map<String, Object> attributes) {
        String path = resolve(beanFactory, (String) attributes.get("path"));
        return getPath(path);
    }

    /**
     * Gets path.
     * @param path the path

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