apache/cassandra · error · InvalidRequestException

of type has no field

Error message

%s of type %s has no field %s

What it means

Field selection resolved the receiver as a UDT, but the requested field name does not exist in the type definition: UserType.fieldPosition returns -1 and the query is rejected, naming the receiver, the UDT type, and the unknown field.

Solutions

1. Check the field name against DESCRIBE TYPE / system_schema.types
2. Re-sync client queries with the current UDT definition after ALTER TYPE ... RENAME/ADD
3. Quote the field identifier exactly if it was created case-sensitively

Example fix

// before
SELECT addr.zipcode FROM t; // UDT has 'zip'
// after
SELECT addr.zip FROM t;

UserType ut = (UserType) col.getType().unwrap();
if (ut.fieldPosition(fieldName) < 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException(ut.getNameAsString() + " has no field " + fieldName);

boolean hasField(UserType ut, String f) { return ut.fieldPosition(f) != -1; }

When it happens

Trigger: SELECT addr.citty FROM t where the UDT 'addr' has no field named 'citty' (typo, case sensitivity, or UDT altered in a newer schema version).

Common situations: UDT fields renamed/dropped by ALTER TYPE after client code was written; schema drift between environments; case-sensitive field names (UDT fields created quoted).

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid field selection
• A user type cannot contain counters
• A user type cannot contain non-frozen UDTs
• Altering field types is no longer supported
• Argument ' ' cannot be frozen; remove frozen<> modifier from

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/76cdb4e39bb6cf9d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/selection/Selectable.java:577

                BetweenParenthesesOrWithTuple betweenParentheses = (BetweenParenthesesOrWithTuple) selected;
                expectedUdtType = betweenParentheses.selectables.get(0).getExactTypeIfKnown(table.keyspace);
            }

            Selector.Factory factory = selected.newSelectorFactory(table, expectedUdtType, defs, boundNames);
            AbstractType<?> type = factory.getReturnType().unwrap();
            if (!type.isUDT())
            {
                throw new InvalidRequestException(
                        String.format("Invalid field selection: %s of type %s is not a user type",
                                selected,
                                type.asCQL3Type()));
            }

            UserType ut = (UserType) type;
            int fieldIndex = ut.fieldPosition(field);
            if (fieldIndex == -1)
            {
                throw new InvalidRequestException(String.format("%s of type %s has no field %s",
                        selected, type.asCQL3Type(), field));
            }

            return FieldSelector.newFactory(ut, fieldIndex, factory);
        }

        public AbstractType<?> getExactTypeIfKnown(String keyspace)
        {
            AbstractType<?> selectedType = selected.getExactTypeIfKnown(keyspace);
            if (selectedType == null || !(selectedType instanceof UserType))
                return null;

            UserType ut = (UserType) selectedType;
            int fieldIndex = ut.fieldPosition(field);
            if (fieldIndex == -1)
                return null;

            return ut.fieldType(fieldIndex);

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