spring-projects/spring-boot · error · IllegalArgumentException

Failed to parse arguments

Error message

Failed to parse arguments [{arguments}]

What it means

RunArguments.parseArgs converts a free-form argument string (e.g. the spring-boot.run.arguments Maven property) into a String[]. It normalizes newlines/tabs to spaces and delegates to Maven's CommandLineUtils.translateCommandline, which tokenizes with quote/backslash awareness. If the tokenizer encounters malformed syntax (unclosed quote, dangling escape), the exception is wrapped and rethrown as IllegalArgumentException with the offending arguments embedded in the message.

Solutions

1. Quote any argument containing spaces: -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--greeting='hello world' --port=8080"
2. Pass each argument as its own space-separated token and use single quotes around values that contain spaces
3. Move complex values into a Maven property and reference them with ${property.name} rather than inlining

Example fix

// before
-Dspring-boot.run.arguments=--greeting=hello world
// after
-Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--greeting=hello world"

// Pre-validate argument string the same way the plugin will
try {
    org.codehaus.plexus.util.cli.CommandLineUtils.translateCommandline(arguments);
} catch (Exception e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Arguments would fail to parse: " + e.getMessage(), e);
}

try { RunArguments.parseArgs(args); } catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) { log.error("Malformed run arguments; check quoting: {}", args); throw ex; }

When it happens

Trigger: Setting spring-boot.run.arguments (or jvmArguments) to a value with an unmatched quote, an odd number of backslashes, or otherwise unbalanced quoting that CommandLineUtils.translateCommandline rejects.

Common situations: Passing an argument containing spaces without quoting (e.g. --greeting=hello world splits into two tokens); embedding JSON or paths with spaces; copy-pasting values from a shell that already consumed the surrounding quotes.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• Failed to generate build-info.properties.
• Failed to load layers configuration with name
• Invalid Docker configuration, either context or host can be…
• Invalid jmx name
• ' ' is not within the valid range to

AI-assisted analysis of spring-projects/spring-boot@270dfe353f (2026-08-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/14465e905456048c. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at build-plugin/spring-boot-maven-plugin/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/maven/RunArguments.java:73

	Deque<String> getArgs() {
		return this.args;
	}

	String[] asArray() {
		return this.args.toArray(new String[0]);
	}

	static String[] parseArgs(@Nullable String arguments) {
		if (arguments == null || arguments.trim().isEmpty()) {
			return NO_ARGS;
		}
		try {
			arguments = arguments.replace('\n', ' ').replace('\t', ' ');
			return CommandLineUtils.translateCommandline(arguments);
		}
		catch (Exception ex) {
			throw new IllegalArgumentException("Failed to parse arguments [" + arguments + "]", ex);
		}
	}

}

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