protected String[] splitColonSeparated(String option, int minNumCols, int maxNumCols) {
    String optVal = cmd.getOptionValue(option);
    String[] cols = optVal.split(COLON);
    if (cols.length < minNumCols || cols.length > maxNumCols) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException(
        "Expected at least " + minNumCols + " columns but no more than " + maxNumCols
          + " in the colon-separated value '" + optVal + "' of the " + "-" + option + " option");
    }
    return cols;
  }
This will be removed as we factor out the dependency on command line
hbase-diagnostics/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/LoadTestTool.java