[CASSANDRA-5882] Changing column type from int to bigint or vice versa causes decoding errors.

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Normal
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 1.2.9
• Severity: Normal
• Assignee: Sylvain Lebresne
• Reporter: J.B. Langston

Authors

Sylvain Lebresne

Reviewers

Aleksey Yeschenko

• Created: 13/Aug/13 14:22
• Updated: 16/Apr/19 09:32
• Resolved: 26/Aug/13 16:01

Description

cqlsh:dbsite> create table testint (id uuid, bestof bigint, primary key (id) );
cqlsh:dbsite> insert into testint (id, bestof ) values (49d30f84-a409-4433-ad60-eb9c1a06b7bb, 1376399966);
cqlsh:dbsite> insert into testint (id, bestof ) values (6cab4798-ad29-4419-bd59-308f9ec3bc44, 1376389800);
cqlsh:dbsite> insert into testint (id, bestof ) values (685bb9ff-a4fe-4e47-95eb-f6a353d9e179, 1376390400);
cqlsh:dbsite> insert into testint (id, bestof ) values (a848f832-5ded-4ef7-bf4b-7db561564c57, 1376391000);
cqlsh:dbsite> select * from testint ;
id | bestof
-------------------------------------+-----------
a848f832-5ded-4ef7-bf4b-7db561564c57 | 1376391000
49d30f84-a409-4433-ad60-eb9c1a06b7bb | 1376399966
6cab4798-ad29-4419-bd59-308f9ec3bc44 | 1376389800
685bb9ff-a4fe-4e47-95eb-f6a353d9e179 | 1376390400

cqlsh:dbsite> alter table testint alter bestof TYPE int;
cqlsh:dbsite> select * from testint ;
id | bestof
-------------------------------------+----------------------------
a848f832-5ded-4ef7-bf4b-7db561564c57 | '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n\x0fX'
49d30f84-a409-4433-ad60-eb9c1a06b7bb | '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n2^'
6cab4798-ad29-4419-bd59-308f9ec3bc44 | '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n\n\xa8'
685bb9ff-a4fe-4e47-95eb-f6a353d9e179 | '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n\r\x00'

Failed to decode value '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n\x0fX' (for column 'bestof') as int: unpack requires a string argument of length 4
Failed to decode value '\x00\x00\x00\x00R\n2^' (for column 'bestof') as int: unpack requires a string argument of length 4
2 more decoding errors suppressed.

I realize that going from BIGINT to INT would cause overflow if a column contained a number larger than 2^31-1, it is at least technically possible to go in the other direction. I also understand that rewriting all the data in the correct format would be a very expensive operation on a large column family, but if that's not something we want to allow we should explicitly disallow changing data types if the table has any rows.