apache/cassandra · error · MarshalException

Unable to make double from '%s'

Error message

Unable to make double from '%s'

What it means

DoubleType.fromString() parses a CQL string into a double by delegating to Double.valueOf(). When the string is not a valid Java double literal, NumberFormatException is caught and rethrown as a MarshalException with the offending source text embedded. This guards the deserialization path from user-supplied literal values in CQL, JSON, and SSTable-attached strings.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/marshal/DoubleType.java:92

    @Override
    public <V> V fromComparableBytes(ValueAccessor<V> accessor, ByteSource.Peekable comparableBytes, ByteComparable.Version version)
    {
        return ByteSourceInverse.getOptionalSignedFixedLengthFloat(accessor, comparableBytes, 8);
    }

    public ByteBuffer fromString(String source) throws MarshalException
    {
      // Return an empty ByteBuffer for an empty string.
      if (source.isEmpty())
          return ByteBufferUtil.EMPTY_BYTE_BUFFER;

      try
      {
          return decompose(Double.valueOf(source));
      }
      catch (NumberFormatException e1)
      {
          throw new MarshalException(String.format("Unable to make double from '%s'", source), e1);
      }
    }

    @Override
    public Term fromJSONObject(Object parsed) throws MarshalException
    {
        try
        {
            if (parsed instanceof String)
                return new Constants.Value(fromString((String) parsed));
            else
                return new Constants.Value(getSerializer().serialize(((Number) parsed).doubleValue()));
        }
        catch (ClassCastException exc)
        {
            throw new MarshalException(String.format(
                    "Expected a double value, but got a %s: %s", parsed.getClass().getSimpleName(), parsed));
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Fix the input string to be a valid double literal parseable by Double.valueOf (e.g. '1.5', '-0.3e10', 'NaN')
2. Strip locale-specific formatting (thousands separators, comma decimal points) before passing the string
3. If the value comes from JSON, ensure numbers are passed as JSON numbers so fromJSONObject uses the Number branch instead of string parsing
4. Validate the literal client-side with Double.parseDouble in a try/catch before submitting

Example fix

// before
DoubleType.instance.fromString("1,234.5"); // MarshalException
// after
DoubleType.instance.fromString("1234.5");

boolean isValidDoubleLiteral(String s) { try { Double.parseDouble(s); return true; } catch (NumberFormatException e) { return false; } }

try { DoubleType.instance.fromString(source); } catch (MarshalException e) { log.warn("Invalid double literal: {}", source); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DoubleType.instance.fromString(...) (directly or via fromJSONObject on a JSON string value) with text that Double.valueOf cannot parse, e.g. '12.3.4', 'abc', or a locale-formatted number like '1,23'.

Common situations: Application code sends numeric literals in a locale format with comma decimal separators; a JSON string column value contains non-numeric text; scripts generate literals with typo'd or empty strings for double columns.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• Unable to make float from '%s'
• In call to function %s, value 0x%s is not a valid binary rep
• ' is not empty
• Expected a float value, but got a %s: %s
• Unable to make inet address from '%s'

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2f6545a4fb936dac. Report an issue: GitHub.