elastic/elasticsearch · error · ParseException

coordinate dimensions do not match: {}

Error message

coordinate dimensions do not match: {}

What it means

Thrown by WellKnownText.parseCoordinate when, within a single geometry, some coordinate tuples include an altitude (third number) and others do not. The method accumulates lons, lats, and alts; if alts is non-empty but its size differs from lons, the dimensions are inconsistent.

Source

Thrown at libs/geo/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/geometry/utils/WellKnownText.java:524

    }

    static void parseCoordinates(StreamTokenizer stream, ArrayList<Double> lats, ArrayList<Double> lons, ArrayList<Double> alts)
        throws IOException, ParseException {
        parseCoordinate(stream, lats, lons, alts);
        while (nextCloserOrComma(stream).equals(COMMA)) {
            parseCoordinate(stream, lats, lons, alts);
        }
    }

    static void parseCoordinate(StreamTokenizer stream, ArrayList<Double> lats, ArrayList<Double> lons, ArrayList<Double> alts)
        throws IOException, ParseException {
        lons.add(nextNumber(stream));
        lats.add(nextNumber(stream));
        if (isNumberNext(stream)) {
            alts.add(nextNumber(stream));
        }
        if (alts.isEmpty() == false && alts.size() != lons.size()) {
            throw new ParseException("coordinate dimensions do not match: " + tokenString(stream), stream.lineno());
        }
    }

    private static MultiPoint parseMultiPoint(StreamTokenizer stream) throws IOException, ParseException {
        String token = nextEmptyOrOpen(stream);
        if (token.equals(EMPTY)) {
            return MultiPoint.EMPTY;
        }
        ArrayList<Double> lats = new ArrayList<>();
        ArrayList<Double> lons = new ArrayList<>();
        ArrayList<Double> alts = new ArrayList<>();
        ArrayList<Point> points = new ArrayList<>();
        parseCoordinates(stream, lats, lons, alts);
        for (int i = 0; i < lats.size(); i++) {
            if (alts.isEmpty()) {
                points.add(new Point(lons.get(i), lats.get(i)));
            } else {
                points.add(new Point(lons.get(i), lats.get(i), alts.get(i)));

View on GitHub (pinned to db6a809a66)

Solutions

1. Make all coordinate tuples in the geometry the same dimensionality: either all 2D (remove altitudes) or all 3D (add the missing altitude).
2. If the source data is heterogeneous, normalize it before WKT generation so every tuple has the same number of components.
3. Validate each tuple's component count during generation and log/skip inconsistent rows.

Example fix

// before: mixed 2D/3D tuples
Geometry g = WellKnownText.fromWKT("LINESTRING (0 0 1, 1 1)");

// after: consistent 3D
Geometry g = WellKnownText.fromWKT("LINESTRING (0 0 1, 1 1 0)");
// or consistent 2D
Geometry g = WellKnownText.fromWKT("LINESTRING (0 0, 1 1)");

// Validate that all coordinate tuples in a WKT body have equal arity
static void validateTupleArity(String wktBody) {
    // extract tuples inside parentheses, split on commas, count numeric tokens per tuple
    // ensure all tuples have the same component count (2 or 3)
}

try {
    Geometry g = WellKnownText.fromWKT(wkt);
} catch (java.text.ParseException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().contains("coordinate dimensions do not match")) {
        // normalize source tuples to uniform dimensionality
    }
    throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: A WKT geometry where coordinate tuples have mixed arity, e.g. "LINESTRING (0 0 1, 1 1)" — the first tuple has 3 values (altitude added to alts) but the second has only 2 (no altitude), so alts.size() (1) != lons.size() (2).

Common situations: CSV-to-WKT conversion where a row is missing its elevation column; data merged from sources with different dimensionality; a serialization bug that drops the Z value on some tuples; upstream truncation.

Related errors

• When specifying 'Z' or 'M', coordinates must include three v
• maximum nested depth of 1000 exceeded
• expected word but found: {}
• invalid number found: {}
• expected number but found: {}

AI-assisted analysis of elastic/elasticsearch@db6a809a66 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ab2e5cc8f680a3f8. Report an issue: GitHub.