SonarSource/sonarqube · error · java.lang.IllegalStateException

Column with autoincrement is neither BigInteger, Integer…

Error message

Column with autoincrement is neither BigInteger, Integer, nor SmallInt

What it means

Thrown by CreateTableBuilder.appendDataType when a column is marked auto-increment but its type is not BigInteger, Integer, or SmallInt. Only those numeric types map to AUTO_INCREMENT/BIGSERIAL/SERIAL/SMALLSERIAL dialect SQL.

Solutions

1. Change the column type to BigIntegerColumnDef, IntegerColumnDef, or SmallIntColumnDef.
2. Remove the auto-increment flag if the column should not be a generated key.
3. Verify columnDef type matches the intended primary-key semantics.

Example fix

// before
newVarcharColumnDefBuilder().setColumnName("id").setIsNullable(false).setLimit(40).build() // with autoincrement
// after
newBigIntegerColumnDefBuilder().setColumnName("id").setIsNullable(false).setAutoIncrement(true).build()

if (columnDef.isAutoIncrement() && !(columnDef instanceof BigIntegerColumnDef || columnDef instanceof IntegerColumnDef || columnDef instanceof SmallIntColumnDef)) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("autoincrement requires integer type"); }

boolean isAutoIncrementCapable(ColumnDef c) { return c instanceof BigIntegerColumnDef || c instanceof IntegerColumnDef || c instanceof SmallIntColumnDef; }

When it happens

Trigger: Building a CREATE TABLE where a column def was created with setIsNullable(false) plus auto-increment on a Varchar/Decimal/Text column.

Common situations: Custom migration accidentally enabling auto-increment on a non-integer key column; copy-pasted column builder with wrong type; generated migration code with mismatched column type.

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

• Error during processing of row
• Fail to execute
• Fail to execute %n (caught error, original was )
• Failed to create table schema_migrations
• Failed to insert row with value

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1b73795ca19d5f6d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/sonar-db-migration/src/main/java/org/sonar/server/platform/db/migration/sql/CreateTableBuilder.java:160

      appendDefaultValue(res, columnDef);
      appendNullConstraint(res, columnDef);
      appendColumnFlags(res, dialect, columnDef);
      if (columnDefIterator.hasNext()) {
        res.append(',');
      }
    }
  }

  private void appendDataType(StringBuilder res, Dialect dialect, ColumnDef columnDef) {
    if (PostgreSql.ID.equals(dialect.getId()) && isAutoIncrement(columnDef)) {
      if (columnDef instanceof BigIntegerColumnDef) {
        res.append("BIGSERIAL");
      } else if (columnDef instanceof IntegerColumnDef) {
        res.append("SERIAL");
      } else if (columnDef instanceof SmallIntColumnDef) {
        res.append("SMALLSERIAL");
      } else {
        throw new IllegalStateException("Column with autoincrement is neither BigInteger, Integer, nor SmallInt");
      }
    } else {
      res.append(columnDef.generateSqlType(dialect));
    }
  }

  private boolean isAutoIncrement(ColumnDef columnDef) {
    Collection<ColumnFlag> columnFlags = this.flagsByColumn.get(columnDef);
    return columnFlags.contains(ColumnFlag.AUTO_INCREMENT);
  }

  private static void appendNullConstraint(StringBuilder res, ColumnDef columnDef) {
    if (columnDef.isNullable()) {
      res.append(" NULL");
    } else {
      res.append(" NOT NULL");
    }
  }

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