dgraph-io/dgraph · error

while unquoting: %w

Error message

while unquoting: %w

What it means

ParseRDF (chunker/rdf_parser.go:133) lexes an N-Quad line and, for an itemLiteral token, unquotes the literal with strconv.Unquote to recover the raw string. If the literal is not a properly quoted/escaped Go-style string, Unquote fails and this error is returned wrapping the cause. It means an object literal in the RDF line has malformed quoting or escaping.

Source

Thrown at chunker/rdf_parser.go:133

		case itemObject:
			rnq.ObjectId = strings.TrimFunc(item.Val, isSpaceRune)

		case itemStar:
			switch {
			case rnq.Subject == "":
				rnq.Subject = x.Star
			case rnq.Predicate == "":
				rnq.Predicate = x.Star
			default:
				rnq.ObjectValue = &api.Value{Val: &api.Value_DefaultVal{DefaultVal: x.Star}}
			}

		case itemLiteral:
			var err error
			oval, err = strconv.Unquote(item.Val)
			if err != nil {
				return rnq, fmt.Errorf("while unquoting: %w", err)
			}
			seenOval = true

		case itemLanguage:
			rnq.Lang = item.Val

		case itemObjectType:
			if rnq.Predicate == x.Star || rnq.Subject == x.Star {
				return rnq, errors.New("if predicate/subject is *, value should be * as well")
			}

			val := strings.TrimFunc(item.Val, isSpaceRune)
			// TODO: Check if this condition is required.
			if val == "*" {
				return rnq, errors.New("itemObject can't be *")
			}
			// Lets find out the storage type from the type map.
			t, ok := typeMap[val]

View on GitHub (pinned to 759e242be6)

Solutions

  1. Fix the literal's quoting: ensure it is fully wrapped in double quotes with valid escapes (\", \\, \n, \t, \uXXXX).
  2. Escape raw newlines/tabs as \n and \t inside literals; strip smart quotes.
  3. Regenerate the export from the source tool rather than hand-editing, and validate each line with strconv.Unquote before parsing.

Example fix

// before
<0x1> <name> "line1
line2" .
// after
<0x1> <name> "line1\nline2" .
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

func literalIsQuoted(line string) error {
	// extract each "..." literal and verify Go-style unquoting works
	for _, lit := range regexp.MustCompile(`"[^"]*"`).FindAllString(line, -1) {
		if _, err := strconv.Unquote(lit); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("bad literal %q: %v", lit, err)
		}
	}
	return nil
}

Type guard

func isQuotedLiteral(s string) bool {
	_, err := strconv.Unquote(s)
	return err == nil
}

Try / catch

nq, err := chunker.ParseRDF(line, op)
if err != nil {
	var ui *strconv.NumError
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "while unquoting") {
		// repair escapes in the literal and re-parse
	}
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Parse/ParseRDFs (or parseNquads) on an N-Quad whose object literal has bad quoting: unbalanced quotes, raw newlines/tabs inside the literal, or invalid escape sequences like \x or a dangling backslash.

Common situations: RDF exports generated by non-conforming tools, manual edits that broke escaping, copy-pasted values with smart quotes or real newlines inside literals, Windows-encoded files with stray characters.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of dgraph-io/dgraph@759e242be6 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7ab713abd32ca898. Report an issue: GitHub.