apache/cassandra · error · InvalidRequestException

Invalid amount of bind variables

Error message

Invalid amount of bind variables

What it means

QueryProcessor.process() validates that the number of values supplied in QueryOptions matches the number of bind variables in the prepared statement. A mismatch means the client supplied too many or too few bound values, so execution is rejected before processStatement.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/QueryProcessor.java:402

    {
        return getStatement(queryString, queryState.getClientState().cloneWithKeyspaceIfSet(options.getKeyspace()));
    }

    public ResultMessage process(CQLStatement statement,
                                 QueryState state,
                                 QueryOptions options,
                                 Map<String, ByteBuffer> customPayload,
                                 Dispatcher.RequestTime requestTime) throws RequestExecutionException, RequestValidationException
    {
        return process(statement, state, options, requestTime);
    }

    public ResultMessage process(CQLStatement prepared, QueryState queryState, QueryOptions options, Dispatcher.RequestTime requestTime)
    throws RequestExecutionException, RequestValidationException
    {
        options.prepare(prepared.getBindVariables());
        if (prepared.getBindVariables().size() != options.getValues().size())
            throw new InvalidRequestException("Invalid amount of bind variables");

        if (!queryState.getClientState().isInternal)
            metrics.regularStatementsExecuted.inc();

        return processStatement(prepared, queryState, options, requestTime);
    }

    public static CQLStatement parseStatement(String queryStr, ClientState clientState) throws RequestValidationException
    {
        return getStatement(queryStr, clientState);
    }

    public static UntypedResultSet process(String query, ConsistencyLevel cl) throws RequestExecutionException
    {
        return process(query, cl, Collections.<ByteBuffer>emptyList());
    }

    public static UntypedResultSet process(String query, ConsistencyLevel cl, List<ByteBuffer> values) throws RequestExecutionException

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Supply exactly one value per bind marker in the prepared statement.
2. Re-prepare the statement if the schema changed and the bind variable count differs.
3. Fix code that constructs the values list (e.g. skips null entries) to include all markers.

Example fix

// before
stmt.bind(id); // statement has 2 markers
// after
stmt.bind(id, name);

if (values.size() != prepared.getBindVariables().size()) throw new IllegalStateException("expected " + prepared.getBindVariables().size() + " values, got " + values.size());

try { session.execute(ps.bind(values.toArray())); } catch (InvalidRequestException e) { if (e.getMessage().equals("Invalid amount of bind variables")) { /* re-prepare and rebind */ } }

When it happens

Trigger: Executing a prepared statement with positional values whose count != prepared.getBindVariables().size(), e.g. missing a bound value after adding a column to the CQL, or passing extra values.

Common situations: Schema change added/removed a bind marker while cached prepared-statement binding code was not updated; loops building value lists that skip nulls; driver misuse mixing named and positional binding.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Value for a map addition has to be a map, but was: '%s'
• Got null for INSERT JSON values
• Too many markers(?). %d markers exceed the allowed maximum o
• Prepared statement of size %d bytes is larger than allowed m
• there were %d markers(?) in CQL but %d bound variables

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c55ba89052cefc20. Report an issue: GitHub.