apache/seatunnel · error · IllegalArgumentException

Invalid DECIMAL definition: " + decimalTypeDefinition

Error message

Invalid DECIMAL definition: " + decimalTypeDefinition

What it means

StarRocksTypeConverter.getPrecisionAndScale parses a DECIMAL type definition of the form 'DECIMAL(p,s)' by stripping the prefix, splitting on comma, and requiring exactly two parts. If the string doesn't yield exactly two parts, it throws IllegalArgumentException('Invalid DECIMAL definition: ...').

Solutions

1. Fix the DECIMAL definition to StarRocks canonical form DECIMAL(precision, scale), e.g. DECIMAL(10,2)
2. If it comes from save_mode_create_template, correct the template's decimal syntax
3. Check the source table DDL in StarRocks (SHOW CREATE TABLE) and match it exactly
4. If this is user input validation, pre-validate the decimal string before conversion

Example fix

// before
String ddl = "DECIMAL(10)"; // missing scale
// after
String ddl = "DECIMAL(10,2)";

String ct = "DECIMAL(10,2)"; assert ct.toUpperCase().matches("DECIMAL\\s*\\(\\s*\\d+\\s*,\\s*\\d+\\s*\\)"); // passes only canonical form

boolean isValidDecimalDef(String s) { return s != null && s.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT).matches("DECIMAL\\s*\\(\\s*\\d+\\s*,\\s*\\d+\\s*\\)"); }

try { converter.convert(td); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Invalid DECIMAL definition")) { /* normalize the DDL to DECIMAL(p,s) and retry */ } throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a malformed decimalTypeDefinition such as 'DECIMAL(10)' (missing scale), 'DECIMAL' (no parentheses), 'DECIMAL(10,2,3)', or a variant whose numeric part doesn't split into exactly two comma-separated integers.

Common situations: Custom save_mode_create_template producing non-standard DECIMAL DDL (e.g. DECIMAL without scale); table definitions written by hand or by other tools with invalid precision/syntax; case/spacing variants the parser doesn't normalize.

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

• Column type is empty.
• The decimal column type decimal( , ) is out of range, which…
• The decimal column type decimal( , ) is out of range, which…
• The decimal column type decimal( , ) is out of range, which…
• The decimal column type decimal( , ) is out of range, which…

AI-assisted analysis of apache/seatunnel@cf67b549a7 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/756b6d5efc2b00d9. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at seatunnel-connectors-v2/connector-starrocks/src/main/java/org/apache/seatunnel/connectors/seatunnel/starrocks/datatypes/StarRocksTypeConverter.java:492

        if (columnType.contains("(") && columnType.contains(")")) {
            return columnType.substring(0, columnType.indexOf("("));
        }

        return columnType;
    }

    private static int[] getPrecisionAndScale(String decimalTypeDefinition) {
        // Remove the "DECIMALV3" part and the parentheses
        decimalTypeDefinition = decimalTypeDefinition.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
        String numericPart = decimalTypeDefinition.replace("DECIMALV3(", "").replace(")", "");
        numericPart = numericPart.replace("DECIMAL(", "").replace(")", "");

        // Split by comma to separate precision and scale
        String[] parts = numericPart.split(",");

        if (parts.length != 2) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                    "Invalid DECIMAL definition: " + decimalTypeDefinition);
        }

        // Parse precision and scale from the split parts
        int precision = Integer.parseInt(parts[0].trim());
        int scale = Integer.parseInt(parts[1].trim());

        // Return an array containing precision and scale
        return new int[] {precision, scale};
    }

    private void reconvertBuildArrayInternal(
            SeaTunnelDataType elementType,
            BasicTypeDefine.BasicTypeDefineBuilder<StarRocksType> builder,
            String columnName) {
        switch (elementType.getSqlType()) {
            case BOOLEAN:
                builder.columnType(SR_BOOLEAN_ARRAY);

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