apache/cassandra · error · InvalidRequestException

Invalid value for INITCOND of type

Error message

Invalid value for INITCOND of type %s

What it means

Thrown when the literal supplied as INITCOND cannot be validated as a value of the aggregate's STYPE (an AbstractType.MarshalException was raised while validating the serialized bytes). The initcond must be a legal value of the state type.

Solutions

1. Align the INITCOND literal with the declared STYPE (e.g. 0 for int, 0.0 for double, quoted string for text).
2. Update STYPE and INITCOND together when changing the state type.
3. Omit INITCOND if the state function is CALLED ON NULL INPUT and null initialization is acceptable.

Example fix

// before
CREATE AGGREGATE ks.sum(int) SFUNC add_one STYPE int INITCOND 'zero';
// after
CREATE AGGREGATE ks.sum(int) SFUNC add_one STYPE int INITCOND 0;

// validate initcond literal against STYPE before issuing DDL
try {
    Object v = stateType.asCQL3Type().fromCQLLiteral(initcondLiteral);
    stateType.validate(stateType.getSerializer().serialize(v));
} catch (MarshalException e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("INITCOND " + initcondLiteral + " invalid for STYPE " + stateType);
}

try { session.execute(ddl); }
catch (InvalidRequestException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Invalid value for INITCOND")) { /* fix literal to match STYPE */ }
    else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: CREATE AGGREGATE ... INITCOND <value> where <value> does not marshal to the declared STYPE, e.g. a string for an int state type, an out-of-domain value for the type, or a wrongly shaped collection/tuple literal.

Common situations: Copy-pasted initcond from an aggregate with a different STYPE; type changed in STYPE but old INITCOND left in place; locale/precision issues with decimal or floating-point literals.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot assign value to of type
• Cannot assign value to of type
• Cannot cast value to type
• Cannot create aggregate
• Cannot replace aggregate

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/26342bac5a326fe0. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/statements/schema/CreateAggregateStatement.java:187

        /*
         * Validate initial condition
         */

        ByteBuffer initialValue = null;
        if (null != rawInitialValue)
        {
            String term = rawInitialValue.toString();
            initialValue = Term.asBytes(keyspaceName, term, stateType);

            if (null != initialValue)
            {
                try
                {
                    stateType.validate(initialValue);
                }
                catch (MarshalException e)
                {
                    throw ire("Invalid value for INITCOND of type %s", stateType.asCQL3Type());
                }
            }

            // Converts initcond to a CQL literal and parse it back to avoid another CASSANDRA-11064
            String initialValueString = stateType.asCQL3Type().toCQLLiteral(initialValue);
            if (!Objects.equal(initialValue, stateType.asCQL3Type().fromCQLLiteral(initialValueString)))
                throw new AssertionError(String.format("CQL literal '%s' (from type %s) parsed with a different value", initialValueString, stateType.asCQL3Type()));

            if (Constants.NULL_LITERAL != rawInitialValue && isNullOrEmpty(stateType, initialValue))
                throw ire("INITCOND must not be empty for all types except TEXT, ASCII, BLOB");
        }

        if (!((UDFunction) stateFunction).isCalledOnNullInput() && null == initialValue)
        {
            throw ire("Cannot create aggregate '%s' without INITCOND because state function %s does not accept 'null' arguments",
                      aggregateName,
                      stateFunctionName);
        }

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