stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · IllegalArgumentException

: Invalid options key in constructor: %n

Error message

%s: Invalid options key in constructor: %s%n

What it means

SpanishLexer's options-based constructor accepts only a fixed set of option keys (e.g. spanishTokenization, splitVerbs, splitNouns, invertible, strictTreebank3, untokenizable, etc.). When a key is passed that does not match any known option name, the constructor throws this IllegalArgumentException. It is a fail-fast guard against misspelled or unsupported tokenizer options.

Solutions

  1. Check the option key spelling against the recognized keys in SpanishLexer's constructor and fix the typo.
  2. Remove the unknown key if it is not supported by SpanishLexer (it may belong to a different tokenizer such as PTBTokenizer).
  3. If configuring via CoreNLP properties, update the tokenize.options value to only SpanishLexer-supported keys.
  4. Consult the CoreNLP tokenizer documentation for the current list of supported Spanish options after a version upgrade.

Example fix

// before
new SpanishLexer("spanishTokenizaton=true, invertible=true");
// after
new SpanishLexer("spanishTokenization=true, invertible=true");
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

Set<String> allowed = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList("spanishTokenization", "splitVerbs", "splitNouns", "splitAll", "coptainCappedWords", "quoteStyle", "invertible", "strictTreebank3", "untokenizable", "tokenizeNLs"));
for (String key : options.split(",")) {
  String k = key.substring(0, key.indexOf('=') >= 0 ? key.indexOf('=') : key.length()).trim();
  if (!allowed.contains(k)) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown SpanishLexer option: " + k);
}

Try / catch

try {
  lexer = new SpanishLexer(options);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().contains("Invalid options key")) {
    log.error("Bad tokenizer option key, check tokenize.options: " + e.getMessage());
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling new SpanishLexer(String options) (or the LexedTokenFactory variant) with a properties/option string containing a key that is not in the lexer's recognized option list, e.g. "latinNormalization" instead of a supported key.

Common situations: Typos in pipeline properties (e.g. tokenize.options in a Stanford CoreNLP configuration), copying options meant for PTBTokenizer into SpanishLexer, or upgrading CoreNLP where an option was removed/renamed.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/abf106f3e62aa234. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/international/spanish/process/SpanishLexer.java:14188

              case "allDelete":
                untokenizable = UntokenizableOptions.ALL_DELETE;
                break;
              case "noneKeep":
                untokenizable = UntokenizableOptions.NONE_KEEP;
                break;
              case "firstKeep":
                untokenizable = UntokenizableOptions.FIRST_KEEP;
                break;
              case "allKeep":
                untokenizable = UntokenizableOptions.ALL_KEEP;
                break;
              default:
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("SpanishLexer: Invalid option value in constructor: " + key + ": " + value);
            }
          } else if ("strictTreebank3".equals(key)) {
            strictTreebank3 = val;
          } else {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(String.format("%s: Invalid options key in constructor: %s%n", this.getClass().getName(), key));
          }
        }
        // this.seenUntokenizableCharacter = false; // unnecessary, it's default initialized
        if (invertible) {
          if ( ! (tf instanceof CoreLabelTokenFactory)) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("SpanishLexer: the invertible option requires a CoreLabelTokenFactory");
          }
          prevWord = (CoreLabel) tf.makeToken("", 0, 0);
          prevWordAfter = new StringBuilder();
        }
      }


      /** Turn on to find out how things were tokenized. */
      private static final boolean DEBUG = false;

      /** A logger for this class */
      private static final Redwood.RedwoodChannels logger = Redwood.channels(SpanishLexer.class);

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