stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · IllegalArgumentException

conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious requires given one less tha

Error message

conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious requires given one less than clique size ( ) but was

What it means

Like conditionalLogProbGivenPrevious, conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious (plural — returns the distribution over all classes) requires the conditioning context to be exactly windowSize-1 labels, since a FactorTable of windowSize needs one slot left for the label being predicted. Any other `given` length would index outside the table's logical layout, so it throws IllegalArgumentException immediately.

Solutions

Ensure given.length == windowSize-1, taking windowSize from the FactorTable instance.
When slicing a label sequence for position i, take the windowSize-1 labels immediately preceding i.
Validate the array length yourself before the call and throw a descriptive error.

Example fix

// before
int[] given = labels; // full sequence, wrong length
double[] probs = ft.conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(given);

// after
int[] given = Arrays.copyOfRange(labels, pos - (ft.windowSize - 1), pos);
double[] probs = ft.conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(given);

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Java
if (given.length != ft.windowSize - 1) {
  given = Arrays.copyOfRange(labels, pos - (ft.windowSize - 1), pos);
}
double[] probs = ft.conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(given);

Try / catch

// Java
try {
  result = ft.conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(given);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  // log window-size mismatch, rebuild `given` with correct length
  result = ft.conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(
      Arrays.copyOf(given, ft.windowSize - 1));
}

Prevention

Centralize context construction in one utility per CRF order.
Unit-test FactorTable queries with arrays of the exact expected length.
When switching models with different orders, audit all query call sites.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(int[] given) with an array whose length is not windowSize-1: full-size clique arrays, empty arrays, or contexts sized from a different window.

Common situations: Migrating code between CRF models with different markov orders/window sizes; hand-assembling label histories in tests; an off-by-one when slicing a label sequence.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/392ebe3dba444245. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/ie/crf/FactorTable.java:291

//    int i = indexOf(given, of);
//    // if (SloppyMath.isDangerous(z) || SloppyMath.isDangerous(table[i])) {
//    // log.info("z="+z);
//    // log.info("t="+table[i]);
//    // }
//
//    return table[i];
//  }

  /**
   * Computes the probabilities of the tag at the end of the table given that
   * the previous tag sequence in table is GIVEN. given is at the beginning,
   * position in question is at the end
   *
   * @return the probabilities of the tag at the end of the table
   */
  public double[] conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious(int[] given) {
    if (given.length != windowSize - 1) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("conditionalLogProbsGivenPrevious requires given one less than clique size (" +
          windowSize + ") but was " + Arrays.toString(given));
    }
    double[] result = new double[numClasses];
    for (int i = 0; i < numClasses; i++) {
      result[i] = table[indexOf(given, i)];
    }
    ArrayMath.logNormalize(result);
    return result;
  }

  /**
   * Computes the probability of the sequence OF being at the end of the table
   * given that the first tag in table is GIVEN. given is at the beginning, of is
   * at the end
   *
   * @return the probability of the sequence of being at the end of the table
   */
  public double conditionalLogProbGivenFirst(int given, int[] of) {

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