astrid-runtime/astrid · error

empty byte specifier

Error message

empty byte specifier

What it means

Input validation at the top of parse_bytes: the byte-size specifier, after trimming, is an empty string. The parser requires a numeric value plus optional suffix (e.g. 32, 32KB, 32MiB); an empty CLI value for a quota set operation has no meaning and is rejected before suffix parsing. A generic validation bail.

Source

Thrown at crates/astrid-cli/src/commands/quota.rs:338

    let body = client
        .request(AdminRequestKind::QuotaSet {
            principal: target.clone(),
            quotas,
        })
        .await?;
    let _ = into_result(body)?;
    println!("Updated quotas for '{target}'.");
    Ok(ExitCode::SUCCESS)
}

// ── byte/duration parsers ──────────────────────────────────────────

/// Parse `"32"`, `"32B"`, `"32KB"`, `"32MB"`, `"32GB"`, `"32KiB"`,
/// `"32MiB"`, `"32GiB"`, `"32TB"`, `"32TiB"`. Lowercase accepted.
pub(crate) fn parse_bytes(s: &str) -> Result<u64> {
    let trimmed = s.trim();
    if trimmed.is_empty() {
        anyhow::bail!("empty byte specifier");
    }
    // Strip optional `/s` (used by --ipc-rate).
    let body = trimmed.strip_suffix("/s").unwrap_or(trimmed);
    let (num_part, mult) = parse_numeric_suffix(body)?;
    let num: f64 = num_part
        .parse()
        .with_context(|| format!("not a number: {num_part}"))?;
    if num.is_sign_negative() || !num.is_finite() {
        anyhow::bail!("byte value must be non-negative and finite");
    }
    #[expect(
        clippy::cast_sign_loss,
        clippy::cast_precision_loss,
        clippy::cast_possible_truncation,
        reason = "guarded by sign and finite checks above"
    )]
    let bytes = (num * (mult as f64)) as u64;
    Ok(bytes)

View on GitHub (pinned to affd8760f4)

Solutions

1. Supply a non-empty value with a unit, e.g. `--storage 10GB`
2. Check shell variables/config files for empty values before invoking the command
3. Quote and default variables: `${QUOTA:-10GB}`

Example fix

// before
astrid quota set --storage ""
// after
astrid quota set --storage 10GB

fn ensure_non_empty(s: &str) -> Result<&str, String> {
    let t = s.trim();
    if t.is_empty() { Err("byte specifier must not be empty".into()) } else { Ok(t) }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing an empty or whitespace-only value to `--storage`, `--ipc-rate`, or another byte-parsed quota flag.

Common situations: An unset environment variable expanded to empty in a shell script (`--storage "$QUOTA"` with QUOTA=""), a config file with a blank field, or accidentally passing `--storage ""`.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• byte value must be non-negative and finite
• --retain-entries must be at least 1
• --retain-bytes must be greater than 0
• --var has an empty key (got {item:?})
• --var '{key}' was supplied more than once

AI-assisted analysis of astrid-runtime/astrid@affd8760f4 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e85403f682060107. Report an issue: GitHub.