[KAFKA-8053] kafka-topics.sh gives confusing error message when the topic doesn't exist

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 2.4.0, 2.3.1
• Assignee: Tirtha Chatterjee
• Reporter: Jakub Scholz
• Created: 06/Mar/19 16:15
• Updated: 18/Jul/19 20:42
• Resolved: 18/Jul/19 20:41

Description

The kafka-topics.sh utility gives a confusing message when the topic it is called with doesn't exist or when no topics exist at all:

bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --describe --topic xxx
Error while executing topic command : Topics in [] does not exist
[2019-03-06 13:26:33,982] ERROR java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Topics in [] does not exist
at kafka.admin.TopicCommand$.kafka$admin$TopicCommand$$ensureTopicExists(TopicCommand.scala:416)
at kafka.admin.TopicCommand$ZookeeperTopicService.describeTopic(TopicCommand.scala:332)
at kafka.admin.TopicCommand$.main(TopicCommand.scala:66)
at kafka.admin.TopicCommand.main(TopicCommand.scala)
(kafka.admin.TopicCommand$)

It tries to list the topics, but because list of topics is always empty, it always prints just `[]`. The error message should be more useful and instead list the topic passed by the user as the parameter or not try to list anything at all.

 

 

 

Issue Links

• is part of: KAFKA-8670 kafka-topics.sh shows IllegalArgumentException when describing all topics if no topics exist on the cluster
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #6381