jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · ArgumentError

pubmed year-from must be <= year-to

Error message

pubmed year-from must be <= year-to

What it means

This ArgumentError is thrown by the `pubmed journal` command when the optional `--year-from` value is greater than `--year-to`. The command builds a PubMed [PDAT] date-range query and refuses to send a malformed range to the NCBI E-utilities API. It is an input-validation error, not a network failure.

Source

Thrown at clis/pubmed/journal.js:40

        { name: 'journal', positional: true, required: true, help: 'Journal name, e.g. "Nature" or "The Lancet"' },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 20, help: 'Max results (1-100)' },
        { name: 'year-from', type: 'int', help: 'Filter publication year from' },
        { name: 'year-to', type: 'int', help: 'Filter publication year to' },
        { name: 'sort', default: 'relevance', choices: ['relevance', 'date'], help: 'Sort by relevance or date' },
    ],
    columns: SEARCH_COLUMNS,
    func: async (args) => {
        const journal = requireText(args.journal, 'journal');
        const limit = requireBoundedInt(args.limit, 20, 100);
        const yearFrom = requireYear(args['year-from'], 'year-from');
        const yearTo = requireYear(args['year-to'], 'year-to');
        const sort = requireChoice(args.sort, ['relevance', 'date'], 'sort', 'relevance');
        const terms = [`${journal}[Journal]`];
        if (yearFrom || yearTo) {
            const from = yearFrom || 1800;
            const to = yearTo || new Date().getFullYear();
            if (from > to) {
                throw new ArgumentError('pubmed year-from must be <= year-to');
            }
            terms.push(`${from}:${to}[PDAT]`);
        }
        const esearch = await eutilsFetch('esearch', {
            term: terms.join(' AND '),
            retmax: limit,
            usehistory: 'y',
            sort: sort === 'date' ? 'pub_date' : '',
        }, { label: 'pubmed journal' });
        const pmids = esearch?.esearchresult?.idlist;
        if (!Array.isArray(pmids)) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError('pubmed journal did not return an id list', 'PubMed ESearch response shape may have changed.');
        }
        if (pmids.length === 0) {
            throw new EmptyResultError('pubmed journal', `No articles found for journal "${journal}".`);
        }
        return fetchSummaryRows(pmids, 'pubmed journal summary');
    },

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Swap the values so year-from <= year-to before invoking the command
2. Clamp or validate user-supplied years in your script (e.g. from <= to, both 4-digit years within 1800..current year)
3. Pass only one of the two flags if you just want articles from a year onwards or up to a year

Example fix

// before
clis.pubmedJournal({ journal: 'Nature', yearFrom: 2023, yearTo: 2018 });
// after
const from = Math.min(2023, 2018), to = Math.max(2023, 2018);
clis.pubmedJournal({ journal: 'Nature', yearFrom: from, yearTo: to });

function validateYearRange(yearFrom, yearTo) {
  const now = new Date().getFullYear();
  const from = yearFrom ?? 1800;
  const to = yearTo ?? now;
  if (!Number.isInteger(from) || !Number.isInteger(to)) throw new TypeError('years must be integers');
  if (from < 1800 || to > now) throw new RangeError('years out of range');
  if (from > to) throw new RangeError(`year-from (${from}) must be <= year-to (${to})`);
}

try {
  await clis.pubmedJournal({ journal, yearFrom, yearTo });
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'ArgumentError' && /year-from/.test(e.message)) {
    [yearFrom, yearTo] = [yearTo, yearFrom]; // or surface a friendly message
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running the journal command with yearFrom later than yearTo, e.g. `--year-from 2023 --year-to 2019`. Also occurs when only one of the two is set and defaults collide: yearFrom=2050 with no yearTo (to defaults to current year), or yearTo=1800 with no yearFrom (from defaults to 1800).

Common situations: Typo swapping the from/to flags on the command line; scripting that passes user-supplied years unvalidated; passing a future year as year-from; accidentally passing year-to into year-from.

Related errors

• pubmed ${label} must be >= 1800
• pubmed year-from must be <= year-to
• ${label} must be a positive integer
• ${label} must be an integer >= ${min}
• Invalid Lobsters short_id: ${args.id}

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/875c33b73ffd34e6. Report an issue: GitHub.