stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · IllegalArgumentException

Cannot interpret for

Error message

Cannot interpret ${fieldValueStr} for ${fieldType}

What it means

Thrown by updateTemporal when a temporal field value string (for a known datetime field type like year/month/day) cannot be parsed to an integer via parseValue. The rule tried to set or restrict a Partial-time field with a value the comparator/field parser does not understand.

Solutions

1. Fix the rule regex so the captured group contains only digits, or add normalization for the captured text.
2. Extend the field comparator (like month-name comparators elsewhere in the class) so textual values map to integers.
3. Catch the IllegalArgumentException around updateTemporal and treat the expression as unparseable.

Example fix

// before: regex captures full month name into a numeric field
Pattern: "(January|February|...)"  -> field: month

// after: normalize before parse or capture digits
Pattern: "(0?[1-9]|1[0-2])"  -> field: month

static boolean isIntegerField(String v) { return v != null && v.matches("\\d+"); }

try {
  t = formatter.updateTemporal(t, fieldValueStr, fieldType);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().startsWith("Cannot interpret")) {
    log.warn("Skipping unparseable field value: " + fieldValueStr);
    return t; // keep temporal unchanged
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: A SUTime rule binding a regex group to a temporal field (e.g. year, month) where the captured text is non-numeric or has an unexpected shape (e.g. "March" captured for a numeric month field, "ca. 1990").

Common situations: Regexes in rule files matching looser text than the field parser expects; text like "Q1 2020" mapped to month; localized month names reaching a numeric field.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot interpret
• Illegal quantifier at beginning of pattern
• Invalid arguments to
• Invalid timex xml
• Unsupported formatter

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ed6dc1d427db76ba. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/time/TimeFormatter.java:294

  }

  private abstract static class DateTimeFieldComponent extends FormatComponent {

    DateTimeFieldType fieldType;

    public Integer parseValue(String str) { return null; }
    public DateTimeFieldType getDateTimeFieldType() { return fieldType; }

    public SUTime.Temporal updateTemporal(SUTime.Temporal t, String fieldValueStr) {
      DateTimeFieldType dt = getDateTimeFieldType();
      if (fieldValueStr != null && dt != null) {
        Integer v = parseValue(fieldValueStr);
        if (v != null) {
          Partial pt = new Partial();
          pt = JodaTimeUtils.setField(pt, dt, v);
          t = t.intersect(new SUTime.PartialTime(pt));
        } else {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot interpret " + fieldValueStr + " for " + fieldType);
        }
      }
      return t;
    }

  }


  private static class NumericDateComponent extends DateTimeFieldComponent {

    private final int minValue;
    private final int maxValue;
    private final int minDigits;
    private final int maxDigits;

    public NumericDateComponent(DateTimeFieldType fieldType, int minDigits, int maxDigits) {
      this.fieldType = fieldType;
      this.minDigits = minDigits;

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b7edd19c4)