theonedev/onedev · error · IllegalArgumentException

Invalid property path.

Error message

Invalid property path.

What it means

Before validating a property, ValidatorImpl.sanityCheckPropertyPath rejects a null or empty property name, since Bean Validation requires a concrete property path. Passing null or "" to validateProperty/validateValue throws "Invalid property path." (IllegalArgumentException).

Source

Thrown at server-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/validator/internal/engine/ValidatorImpl.java:367

	@Override
	public ExecutableValidator forExecutables() {
		return this;
	}

	private ValidationContextBuilder getValidationContextBuilder() {
		return new ValidationContextBuilder(
				constraintValidatorManager,
				constraintValidatorFactory,
				validatorScopedContext,
				TraversableResolvers.wrapWithCachingForSingleValidation( traversableResolver, validatorScopedContext.isTraversableResolverResultCacheEnabled() ),
				constraintValidatorInitializationContext
		);
	}

	private void sanityCheckPropertyPath(String propertyName) {
		if ( propertyName == null || propertyName.length() == 0 ) {
			throw LOG.getInvalidPropertyPathException();
		}
	}

	private void sanityCheckGroups(Class<?>[] groups) {
		Contracts.assertNotNull( groups, MESSAGES.groupMustNotBeNull() );
		for ( Class<?> clazz : groups ) {
			if ( clazz == null ) {
				throw new IllegalArgumentException( MESSAGES.groupMustNotBeNull() );
			}
		}
	}

	private ValidationOrder determineGroupValidationOrder(Class<?>[] groups) {
		Collection<Class<?>> resultGroups;
		// if no groups is specified use the default
		if ( groups.length == 0 ) {
			resultGroups = DEFAULT_GROUPS;
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to d44925c47c)

Solutions

1. Ensure the property name is non-null and non-empty before calling validateProperty/validateValue
2. Trim and check dynamic property strings at the source
3. If the intent was to validate everything, use validate(bean) instead of a property path

Example fix

// before
validator.validateProperty(user, cfg.getPropertyName());
// after
String prop = cfg.getPropertyName();
if (prop != null && !prop.trim().isEmpty()) {
    validator.validateProperty(user, prop.trim());
}

if (propertyName == null || propertyName.isEmpty()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("propertyName required");

boolean isValidPropertyPath(String p) { return p != null && !p.trim().isEmpty(); }

try { validator.validateProperty(bean, prop); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { throw new BadRequestException("Invalid property path: " + prop, e); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling validateProperty(bean, null) or validateValue(cls, "", value); commonly when the property name is derived dynamically from a variable that is unset or blank.

Common situations: Reflection-based frameworks building validation calls from metadata where the field name is missing; user-supplied property names that were never validated; empty config keys.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Unable to reach the property to validate.
• The group must not be null.
• Type not supported for unwrapping: {type}
• Invalid property path: {path}.
• Error validating imported build spec (import project: %s, im

AI-assisted analysis of theonedev/onedev@d44925c47c (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dc9c620fca2bfc32. Report an issue: GitHub.