SeaQL/sea-orm · error

Failed to get numeric

Error message

Failed to get numeric

What it means

This panic comes from `.expect("Failed to get numeric")` in `ProxyRow`, decoding a Postgres NUMERIC column as `Option<bigdecimal::BigDecimal>` when the `with-bigdecimal` feature is enabled. It fires when sqlx cannot decode the value as BigDecimal -- usually the runtime column type is not actually `numeric` (e.g. it was ALTERed to float8 or text), or the crate's bigdecimal/sqlx versions are incompatible so the decode impl rejects the wire format. The `expect` escalates this to a panic.

Source

Thrown at sea-orm-sync/src/driver/sqlx_postgres.rs:582

                        ),
                        #[cfg(feature = "postgres-array")]
                        "BYTEA[]" => Value::Array(
                            sea_query::ArrayType::Bytes,
                            row.try_get::<Option<Vec<Vec<u8>>>, _>(c.ordinal())
                                .expect("Failed to get bytes array")
                                .map(|vals| {
                                    Box::new(
                                        vals.into_iter()
                                            .map(|val| Value::Bytes(Some(val)))
                                            .collect(),
                                    )
                                }),
                        ),

                        #[cfg(feature = "with-bigdecimal")]
                        "NUMERIC" => Value::BigDecimal(
                            row.try_get::<Option<bigdecimal::BigDecimal>, _>(c.ordinal())
                                .expect("Failed to get numeric"),
                        ),
                        #[cfg(all(
                            feature = "with-rust_decimal",
                            not(feature = "with-bigdecimal")
                        ))]
                        "NUMERIC" => {
                            Value::Decimal(row.try_get(c.ordinal()).expect("Failed to get numeric"))
                        }

                        #[cfg(all(feature = "with-bigdecimal", feature = "postgres-array"))]
                        "NUMERIC[]" => Value::Array(
                            sea_query::ArrayType::BigDecimal,
                            row.try_get::<Option<Vec<bigdecimal::BigDecimal>>, _>(c.ordinal())
                                .expect("Failed to get numeric array")
                                .map(|vals| {
                                    Box::new(
                                        vals.into_iter()
                                            .map(|val| Value::BigDecimal(Some(val)))

View on GitHub (pinned to e29bcd1b41)

Solutions

1. Confirm the actual column type is NUMERIC (`\d table`); ALTER it back or map the entity field to f64/Decimal to match the real type.
2. Align `bigdecimal` and `sqlx` versions with those required by your sea-orm version (check sea-orm's Cargo.toml for the exact feature-mapped versions).
3. Cast in the query: `SELECT col::NUMERIC AS col` to guarantee a numeric reaches the driver.
4. Alternatively switch to `with-rust_decimal` (the fallback branch in this code) and map the field to rust_decimal::Decimal.

Example fix

// before: column altered to float8 but entity still uses BigDecimal
pub rate: BigDecimal,

// after: match the actual column type
pub rate: f64,

let row: (String, ) = sqlx::query_as(
    "SELECT data_type FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name = $1 AND column_name = $2"
).bind("my_table").bind("rate").fetch_one(&db).await?;
assert_eq!(row.0, "numeric", "rate must be NUMERIC, got {}", row.0);
// Also verify bigdecimal version matches sea-orm's requirement in Cargo.toml

fn as_bigdecimal(v: &sea_orm::Value) -> Option<bigdecimal::BigDecimal> {
    match v {
        sea_orm::Value::BigDecimal(d) => d.clone(),
        _ => None,
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any SeaORM query returning a NUMERIC column that cannot be decoded into BigDecimal: column type altered away from numeric, a domain type over numeric with unexpected OIDs, or a version mismatch between `bigdecimal` and `sqlx` crates after a dependency update.

Common situations: `ALTER COLUMN ... TYPE DOUBLE PRECISION` for performance while the model still expects a decimal. Cargo dependency drift: sea-orm pinned to bigdecimal 0.3 while sqlx expects 0.4 (feature mismatch). Reading numeric columns through views that cast to float.

Understand the failure class

Background: Type mismatch errors: IllegalArgumentException, TypeError and type guards across 150 open-source libraries — this error's family across 150 libraries.

Related errors

• Failed to get numeric
• Failed to get numeric array
• Failed to get float
• Failed to get float array
• Failed to get double

AI-assisted analysis of SeaQL/sea-orm@e29bcd1b41 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8a93300d2e29505f. Report an issue: GitHub.