elastic/elasticsearch · error · IllegalArgumentException

For input string: "${stringValue}"

Error message

For input string: "${stringValue}"

What it means

Thrown by AbstractXContentParser.toLong when the input string is not a parseable number at all — Long.parseLong fails and then `new BigDecimal(stringValue)` throws NumberFormatException. The catch block wraps it as an IllegalArgumentException. This is the catch-all for entirely non-numeric or malformed numeric input during long conversion.

Source

Thrown at libs/x-content/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xcontent/support/AbstractXContentParser.java:239

            // long can have a maximum of 19 digits - any more than that cannot be a long
            // the scale is stored as the negation, so negative scale -> big number
            if (bigDecimalValue.scale() < -19) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Value [" + stringValue + "] is out of range for a long");
            }
            // large scale -> very small number
            if (bigDecimalValue.scale() > 19) {
                if (coerce) {
                    bigIntegerValue = BigInteger.ZERO;
                } else {
                    throw new ArithmeticException("Number has a decimal part");
                }
            } else {
                bigIntegerValue = coerce ? bigDecimalValue.toBigInteger() : bigDecimalValue.toBigIntegerExact();
            }
        } catch (ArithmeticException e) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Value [" + stringValue + "] has a decimal part");
        } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("For input string: \"" + stringValue + "\"");
        }

        if (bigIntegerValue.compareTo(LONG_MAX_VALUE_AS_BIGINTEGER) > 0 || bigIntegerValue.compareTo(LONG_MIN_VALUE_AS_BIGINTEGER) < 0) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Value [" + stringValue + "] is out of range for a long");
        }

        assert bigIntegerValue.longValueExact() <= Long.MAX_VALUE; // asserting that no ArithmeticException is thrown
        return bigIntegerValue.longValue();
    }

    @Override
    public long longValue() throws IOException {
        return longValue(DEFAULT_NUMBER_COERCE_POLICY);
    }

    @Override
    public long longValue(boolean coerce) throws IOException {
        Token token = currentToken();

View on GitHub (pinned to db6a809a66)

Solutions

1. Inspect the offending value in the error message and correct the producer to emit a clean integer string.
2. Add an ingest pipeline with a script/grok processor to normalize the value before indexing.
3. Re-map the field to keyword if the values are genuinely non-numeric identifiers or labels.
4. If hex/scientific formats are expected, pre-convert them in your application code before submitting to Elasticsearch.

Example fix

// before: long field receives "1,000"
// after: strip separators in an ingest pipeline before the long field
PUT _ingest/pipeline/normalize { "processors": [ { "script": { "source": "ctx.amount = ctx.amount.replaceAll('[^0-9-]', '')" } } ] }

static boolean isNumeric(String s) {
  if (s == null || s.isEmpty()) return false;
  try { new java.math.BigDecimal(s); return true; }
  catch (NumberFormatException e) { return false; }
}

try { parser.longValue(coerce); }
catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().startsWith("For input string:")) { /* log and reject the bad value */ }
  else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling longValue/longValue(coerce) on a VALUE_STRING token containing text like "abc", "12-34", "", "NaN", "0x1F", "1,000" (with separators), or a value with leading/trailing whitespace. Indexing a non-numeric string into a long-mapped field.

Common situations: Schema-less ingest where a field is auto-detected as long on early documents and later receives textual values. Locale-specific number formatting (commas as thousands separators) passed verbatim. Misconfigured ingest pipeline converting a date string into a field mapped as long. Log payloads mixing units ("42ms") into numeric fields.

Related errors

• Numeric value length [${length}] exceeds the maximum of [${M
• Value [${stringValue}] is out of range for a long
• Value [${stringValue}] has a decimal part
• ${clazz.getSimpleName()} value passed as String
• ${fullVal} cannot be converted to ${clazz.getSimpleName()} w

AI-assisted analysis of elastic/elasticsearch@db6a809a66 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fa021c3449ec79b4. Report an issue: GitHub.