apache/cassandra · error · ArithmeticException

Log10 of number zero or less

Error message

Log10 of number zero or less

What it means

IntegerType.log10 computes the base-10 logarithm of an integer value. Because log10 is mathematically undefined for zero and negative numbers, the method proactively throws ArithmeticException when the parsed BigInteger is <= 0 instead of letting BigDecimal math fail later.

Solutions

1. Validate the input is strictly positive before calling log10 (e.g. WHERE col > 0 or application-side check).
2. Use a CASE/IF expression in CQL to guard: log10(col) only when col > 0, else a fallback value.
3. If negatives are expected, take abs() first or handle the domain explicitly in application code.

Example fix

// before
SELECT log10(delta) FROM metrics;
// after
SELECT CASE WHEN delta > 0 THEN log10(delta) ELSE null END FROM metrics;

if (value == null || value.signum() <= 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException("log10 requires a value > 0, got: " + value);

When it happens

Trigger: Calling log10() (via the log10 CQL native function or directly on IntegerType.instance) with a value of 0, a negative number, or a value that converts to BigInteger <= 0.

Common situations: CQL queries like SELECT log10(col) where col is 0 or negative; user-supplied function arguments not validated by the application; log math applied to counters or deltas that can be zero or negative.

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

• Natural log of number zero or less
• A NaN cannot be converted into a decimal
• An infinite number cannot be converted into a decimal
• Invalid operation ( ) for non-numeric type
• Log10 of number zero or less

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/49b4e9603bac3f68. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/marshal/IntegerType.java:584

        return IntegerType.instance.decompose(out);
    }

    @Override
    public ByteBuffer log(Number input)
    {
        BigInteger bi = toBigInteger(input);
        if (bi.compareTo(BigInteger.ZERO) <= 0) throw new ArithmeticException("Natural log of number zero or less");
        BigDecimal bd = new BigDecimal(bi);
        BigDecimal result = DecimalType.instance.log(bd);
        BigInteger out = result.toBigInteger();
        return IntegerType.instance.decompose(out);
    }

    @Override
    public ByteBuffer log10(Number input)
    {
        BigInteger bi = toBigInteger(input);
        if (bi.compareTo(BigInteger.ZERO) <= 0) throw new ArithmeticException("Log10 of number zero or less");
        BigDecimal bd = new BigDecimal(bi);
        BigDecimal result = DecimalType.instance.log10(bd);
        BigInteger out = result.toBigInteger();
        return IntegerType.instance.decompose(out);
    }

    @Override
    public ByteBuffer round(Number input)
    {
        return decompose(toBigInteger(input));
    }

    @Override
    public ByteBuffer getMaskedValue()
    {
        return MASKED_VALUE;
    }
}

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