flowable/flowable-engine · warning

Error parsing output values

Error message

Error parsing output values

What it means

Warning logged by OutputValuesParser.parseChildElement when an exception occurs while parsing the <outputValues> element (allowed output values) of a DMN output clause, including failures inside splitAndFormatInputOutputValues. The exception is swallowed; the clause is left with null/partial outputValues, so validation of rule output entries against the allowed list is silently skipped for that column.

Solutions

1. Read the attached stack trace to see whether it was an XML error or a split/format failure.
2. Ensure values are a comma-separated list in <text>, e.g. <text>"low","medium","high"</text>, and the element is properly closed.
3. Validate the .dmn against the DMN XSD before deployment.
4. Re-export the table from the DMN tool to regenerate standard XML.

Example fix

<!-- before -->
<outputValues><text>low; medium; high</text></outputValues> <!-- wrong separator/format -->
<!-- after -->
<outputValues><text>"low","medium","high"</text></outputValues>

// validate outputValues list format before deployment
String text = outputValuesText.trim();
if (!text.matches("^(\"[^\"]*\"|[^,\"]+)(\s*,\s*(\"[^\"]*\"|[^,\"]+))*$")) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("outputValues must be comma-separated: " + text);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Parsing the comma-separated values inside <outputValues><text>...</text></outputValues> — the XMLStreamReader throws (malformed XML) or the text-splitting/formatting logic fails (unexpected empty or non-list content) before the </outputValues> end element.

Common situations: Hand-edited .dmn with empty or oddly formatted output value lists; exporter writing values in an unexpected layout; corrupted/truncated files.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Error determine output clause for position
• Error determine output clause for position
• Error parsing input entry
• Error parsing input expression
• Error parsing input expression

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cff6aad2b8055d9e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-dmn-xml-converter/src/main/java/org/flowable/dmn/converter/child/OutputValuesParser.java:54

        }

        UnaryTests outputValues = new UnaryTests();

        boolean readyWithOutputValues = false;
        try {
            while (!readyWithOutputValues && xtr.hasNext()) {
                xtr.next();
                if (xtr.isStartElement() && ELEMENT_TEXT.equalsIgnoreCase(xtr.getLocalName())) {
                    String outputValuesText = xtr.getElementText();
                    outputValues.setText(outputValuesText);

                    outputValues.setTextValues(splitAndFormatInputOutputValues(outputValuesText));
                } else if (xtr.isEndElement() && getElementName().equalsIgnoreCase(xtr.getLocalName())) {
                    readyWithOutputValues = true;
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            LOGGER.warn("Error parsing output values", e);
        }

        clause.setOutputValues(outputValues);
    }
}

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