cayleygraph/cayley · error

cannot find quad %v in query output (columns: %v)

Error message

cannot find quad %v in query output (columns: %v)

What it means

In scanValue, when the iterator expects a full quad (multiple column indexes in it.cind), each quad direction (subject/predicate/object/label) must map to a query output column. This error means a required direction column is missing from the SELECT result, so the quad cannot be reconstructed. It is stored in it.err and aborts the scan.

Source

Thrown at graph/sql/iterator.go:198

	for i := range pointers {
		pointers[i] = &nodes[i]
	}
	if err := r.Scan(pointers...); err != nil {
		it.err = err
		return false
	}
	it.tags = make(map[string]graph.Ref)
	for i, name := range it.cols {
		if !strings.Contains(name, tagPref) {
			it.tags[name] = nodes[i].ValueHash
		}
	}
	if len(it.cind) > 1 {
		var q QuadHashes
		for _, d := range quad.Directions {
			i, ok := it.cind[d]
			if !ok {
				it.err = fmt.Errorf("cannot find quad %v in query output (columns: %v)", d, it.cols)
				return false
			}
			q.Set(d, nodes[i].ValueHash)
		}
		it.res = q
		return true
	}
	i, ok := it.cind[quad.Any]
	if !ok {
		it.err = fmt.Errorf("cannot find node hash in query output (columns: %v, cind: %v)", it.cols, it.cind)
		return false
	}
	it.res = nodes[i]
	return true
}

func (it *iteratorBase) Err() error {
	return it.err

View on GitHub (pinned to 81dcd7d73e)

Solutions

1. Inspect the printed columns list and ensure your Select requests a column for every quad direction used.
2. Build Selects via the library's helper methods rather than hand-crafting column lists.
3. Check for version mismatches between the store schema and the library expecting per-direction columns.

for it.Next(ctx) { }
if it.Err() != nil {
    if strings.Contains(it.Err().Error(), "cannot find quad") {
        // rebuild the Select with all quad direction columns
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running a Next/NextPath/Contains on a SQL iterator built with a Select that requests quad directions, where the query result columns (it.cols) lack a column for one of the directions.

Common situations: Custom or hand-built Select statements whose column set doesn't match the directions the iterator expects; schema/column aliasing changes after an upgrade; queries optimized away a direction.

Understand the failure class

Background: "invalid response format", "malformed payload", "missing data field": when an API returns 200 but the response shape is wrong — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• cannot find node hash in query output (columns: %v, cind: %v
• must execute a IteratorStep or PathStep
• no quad store in Iterate
• unexpected node type: %T
• expected KV quadstore, got: %T

AI-assisted analysis of cayleygraph/cayley@81dcd7d73e (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a979414e702b8c90. Report an issue: GitHub.