symfony/finder · error · InvalidArgumentException

Invalid number " ".

Error message

Invalid number "%s".

What it means

After NumberComparator's regex matched and captured a numeric-looking target, PHP's is_numeric() check failed on it — e.g. strings like '1.2.3' or '..' that match the loose [0-9\.]+ pattern but aren't valid numbers — so InvalidArgumentException is thrown with 'Invalid number'.

Solutions

1. Supply a valid plain number with at most one decimal point: '10', '1.5'
2. Sanitize input with filter_var($v, FILTER_VALIDATE_FLOAT) or is_numeric() before constructing
3. Fix config parsing that concatenates or duplicates dots

Example fix

// before
$finder->size('> 1.2.3'); // matches regex but is_numeric fails
// after
$finder->size('> 1.2');

if (!is_numeric($num)) { throw new \InvalidArgumentException("Not a valid number: $num"); }

function isPlainNumber(mixed $v): bool { return is_numeric($v) && substr_count((string) $v, '.') <= 1; }

try { new NumberComparator('> 1.2'); } catch (\InvalidArgumentException $e) { /* handle invalid number */ }

When it happens

Trigger: new NumberComparator('1.2.3'), ->size('..'), ->size('...5') — strings whose digit/dot-only pattern matches the regex but fail is_numeric().

Common situations: Malformed config values with multiple dots, typo'd decimal separators, concatenated strings producing '..' patterns.

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

• Don't understand " " as a number test.
• Invalid operator " ".
• Don't understand " " as a date test.
• " " is not a valid date.
• Invalid PHP callback.

AI-assisted analysis of symfony/finder@4d6c057bfd (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/02b7fe774170060a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at Comparator/NumberComparator.php:50

 *
 * @see http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
 */
class NumberComparator extends Comparator
{
    /**
     * @param string|null $test A comparison string or null
     *
     * @throws \InvalidArgumentException If the test is not understood
     */
    public function __construct(?string $test)
    {
        if (null === $test || !preg_match('#^\s*(==|!=|[<>]=?)?\s*([0-9\.]+)\s*([kmg]i?)?\s*$#i', $test, $matches)) {
            throw new \InvalidArgumentException(\sprintf('Don\'t understand "%s" as a number test.', $test ?? 'null'));
        }

        $target = $matches[2];
        if (!is_numeric($target)) {
            throw new \InvalidArgumentException(\sprintf('Invalid number "%s".', $target));
        }
        if (isset($matches[3])) {
            // magnitude
            switch (strtolower($matches[3])) {
                case 'k':
                    $target *= 1000;
                    break;
                case 'ki':
                    $target *= 1024;
                    break;
                case 'm':
                    $target *= 1000000;
                    break;
                case 'mi':
                    $target *= 1024 * 1024;
                    break;
                case 'g':
                    $target *= 1000000000;

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