gohugoio/hugo · error

error in Parse

Error message

error in Parse: %w

What it means

Thrown by urls.Parse (tpl/urls/urls.go:56) when cast.ToStringE(rawurl) fails to convert the argument to a string. The underlying cast error is wrapped with 'error in Parse'. Note that a successful string conversion can still fail later in url.Parse with a separate error.

Solutions

1. Coerce the value to a string first: {{ urls.Parse (string $value) }}
2. Guard with a string type check before calling Parse
3. Use urls.URLize for plain string normalization which also stringifies

Example fix

// before
{{ urls.Parse $count }}
// after
{{ urls.Parse (string $count) }}

// Ensure the argument is string-convertible.
if _, err := cast.ToStringE(rawurl); err != nil {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("urls.Parse needs a string, got %T", rawurl)
}
// In templates: {{ urls.Parse (string $value) }}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling {{ urls.Parse $value }} where $value is a number, slice, struct, or other non-stringifiable type passed from front matter, params, or scratch.

Common situations: Piping a .Param that holds an integer or a resource object into urls.Parse; passing a []string from a template loop.

Related errors

• end argument must be integer
• illegal number syntax
• integer overflow
• invalid number of arguments to ref
• invalid Page received in Ref

AI-assisted analysis of gohugoio/hugo@52c9bd7908 (2026-08-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8fc52a32a94a89d7. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at tpl/urls/urls.go:56

	multihost bool
}

// AbsURL takes the string s and converts it to an absolute URL.
func (ns *Namespace) AbsURL(s any) (string, error) {
	ss, err := cast.ToStringE(s)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}

	return ns.deps.PathSpec.AbsURL(ss, false), nil
}

// Parse parses rawurl into a URL structure. The rawurl may be relative or
// absolute.
func (ns *Namespace) Parse(rawurl any) (*url.URL, error) {
	s, err := cast.ToStringE(rawurl)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error in Parse: %w", err)
	}

	return url.Parse(s)
}

// RelURL takes the string s and prepends the relative path according to a
// page's position in the project directory structure.
func (ns *Namespace) RelURL(s any) (string, error) {
	ss, err := cast.ToStringE(s)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}

	return ns.deps.PathSpec.RelURL(ss, false), nil
}

// URLize returns the strings s formatted as an URL.
func (ns *Namespace) URLize(s any) (string, error) {

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