apache/cassandra · error · ConstraintViolationException

Column value does not satisfy value constraint for column '<

Error message

Column value does not satisfy value constraint for column '<columnName>'. It should be <columnName> <relationType> <term>

What it means

Thrown by ScalarColumnConstraint.internalEvaluate when a column value fails a scalar CHECK constraint (e.g. CHECK age > 0). The value is compared with the constraint's relationType against the parsed term using the column's type, and a violation rejects the write with ConstraintViolationException.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/constraints/ScalarColumnConstraint.java:123

    }

    @Override
    public List<Operator> getSupportedOperators()
    {
        return SUPPORTED_OPERATORS;
    }

    @Override
    public List<AbstractType<?>> getSupportedTypes()
    {
        return SUPPORTED_TYPES;
    }

    @Override
    protected void internalEvaluate(AbstractType<?> valueType, ByteBuffer columnValue)
    {
        if (!relationType.isSatisfiedBy(valueType, columnValue, value))
            throw new ConstraintViolationException("Column value does not satisfy value constraint for column '" + columnName + "'. "
                                                   + "It should be " + columnName + " " + relationType + " " + term);
    }

    @Override
    public void validate(ColumnMetadata columnMetadata) throws InvalidConstraintDefinitionException
    {
        returnType = columnMetadata.type;

        validateTypes(columnMetadata);

        try
        {
            value = returnType.fromString(ParseUtils.unquote(term));
        }
        catch (Throwable t)
        {
            throw new ConstraintViolationException("Cannot parse constraint value from " + term + " for column '" + columnName + '\'');
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Write a value that satisfies the declared comparison for that column.
2. ALTER the table to adjust the constraint bounds if the rule is too strict.
3. Clamp or validate the value in application code before the write.

Example fix

// constraint: CHECK age >= 0
// before: INSERT INTO people (age) VALUES (-5); -- rejected
// after
INSERT INTO people (age) VALUES (0);

// Java: range-check before write, mirroring CHECK age >= 0
if (age < 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException("age must be >= 0");

catch (ConstraintViolationException e) { log.warn("scalar constraint violated: {}", e.getMessage()); }

When it happens

Trigger: INSERT/UPDATE of a column with a scalar CHECK constraint where the value does not satisfy the comparison (e.g. CHECK price < 1000 but 5000 is written; CHECK score >= 0 but -1 is written).

Common situations: Range constraints on numeric/timestamp columns violated by default values, negative results of upstream computation, unit mismatches (seconds vs milliseconds), or NULL-derived sentinel values.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Column value does not satisfy value constraint for column '<
• REVOKE operation is not supported by AllowAllAuthorizer
• Key may not be empty
• Key length of %d is longer than maximum of %d
• Value does not match regular expression %s

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6c80636f45aeb47d. Report an issue: GitHub.