stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · SsurgeonParseException

Unable to process Ssurgeon edit line: " + editLine

Error message

Unable to process Ssurgeon edit line: " + editLine

What it means

This is the wrapper exception thrown by parseEditLine's catch block: whenever any SsurgeonParseException occurs while processing an edit line, it is rethrown as 'Unable to process Ssurgeon edit line: <editLine>' with the original exception as the cause. It identifies which line failed but the root cause is in the chained exception.

Solutions

  1. Read the chained cause (getCause()) to find the actual parse failure
  2. Locate the offending line in the ssurgeon file — editLine in the message names it
  3. Fix the root cause (arguments, command name, relation name) in that line

Example fix

// before: only looking at the top message
// after
try { SsurgeonEdit edit = Ssurgeon.parseEditLine(line); }
catch (SsurgeonParseException e) {
  System.err.println("Line failed: " + line + " because " + e.getCause());
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try {
  SsurgeonEdit e = Ssurgeon.parseEditLine(line);
} catch (SsurgeonParseException e) {
  // always inspect the cause: this message only names the failing line
  Throwable root = e;
  while (root.getCause() != null) root = root.getCause();
  log.severe("Edit line '" + line + "' failed: " + root.getMessage());
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Any invalid ssurgeon edit line (bad argument count, missing -reln, unknown command, invalid relation name via GrammaticalRelation.valueOf, etc.) processed through Ssurgeon.parseEditLine.

Common situations: Reading an ssurgeon resource file where one line is malformed; debugging requires inspecting the cause rather than this top-level message.

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

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2a32fb9a569877ca. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/semgraph/semgrex/ssurgeon/Ssurgeon.java:693

      } else if (command.equalsIgnoreCase(SetPhraseHead.LABEL)) {
        GrammaticalRelation reln = GrammaticalRelation.valueOf(language, argsBox.reln);
        return new SetPhraseHead(argsBox.nodes, argsBox.headIndex, reln, argsBox.weight);
      } else if (command.equalsIgnoreCase(SplitWord.LABEL)) {
        GrammaticalRelation reln = GrammaticalRelation.valueOf(language, argsBox.reln);
        if (argsBox.regex.size() > 0 && argsBox.exact.size() > 0) {
          throw new SsurgeonParseException("Found both regex and exact in the splits for splitWord");
        }
        if (argsBox.regex.size() > 0) {
          return new SplitWord(argsBox.nodes.get(0), argsBox.regex, argsBox.headIndex, reln, argsBox.name, false);
        } else {
          return new SplitWord(argsBox.nodes.get(0), argsBox.exact, argsBox.headIndex, reln, argsBox.name, true);
        }
      } else if (command.equalsIgnoreCase(ReindexGraph.LABEL)) {
        return new ReindexGraph();
      }
      throw new SsurgeonParseException("Error in SsurgeonEdit.parseEditLine: command '"+command+"' is not supported");
    } catch (SsurgeonParseException e) {
      throw new SsurgeonParseException("Unable to process Ssurgeon edit line: " + editLine, e);
    }
  }

  //public static SsurgeonPattern fromXML(String xmlString) throws Exception {
  //SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
  //Document jdomDoc = builder.build(xmlString);
  //jdomDoc.getRootElement().getChildren(SsurgeonPattern.SSURGEON_ELEM_TAG);
  //}

  /**
   * Given a target filepath and a list of Ssurgeon patterns, writes them out as XML forms.
   */
  public static void writeToFile(File tgtFile, List<SsurgeonPattern> patterns) {
    try {
      Document domDoc = createPatternXMLDoc(patterns);
      if (domDoc != null) {
        Transformer tformer = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
        tformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");

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