greenrobot/greenDAO · error · RuntimeException

Type is already non-primitive

Error message

Type is already non-primitive

What it means

PropertyBuilder.nonPrimitiveType() is meant to mark a scalar property as a non-primitive Java type (e.g. use Long instead of long in generated code). If the property's PropertyType is not scalar, the conversion makes no sense and the generator aborts with a RuntimeException. It is a config-time sanity check: you can only 'un-primitivize' primitive-typed properties.

Solutions

1. Remove the .nonPrimitiveType() call from properties that are already object/reference types
2. Only apply .nonPrimitiveType() to scalar types (boolean, int, long, float, double, short, byte, char)
3. Check the property's PropertyType.isScalar() before calling nonPrimitiveType()
4. If the property should be primitive-typed, declare it with a scalar type first

Example fix

// before
Property name = user.addStringProperty("name").nonPrimitiveType().getProperty();
// after
Property name = user.addStringProperty("name").getProperty(); // String is already non-primitive

if (propertyType.isScalar()) { builder.nonPrimitiveType(); }

function isScalar(pt) { return ['boolean','int','long','float','double','short','byte','char'].includes(pt); }

try { builder.nonPrimitiveType(); } catch (RuntimeException e) { if (e.getMessage().contains("non-primitive")) { /* skip: already object type */ } else { throw e; } }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling PropertyBuilder.nonPrimitiveType() (or the .javaDocNotNull chain equivalent) on a property whose type is already an object type, e.g. a String, byte[], or Date property that was never declared notNull/primitive.

Common situations: Copy-pasting a property declaration and adding .nonPrimitiveType() to a String property; applying a shared property-builder helper to properties of mixed types; API changes where a property previously scalar became a blob/String type.

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

• No mapping for
• Source entity has no primary key, but we need it for
• Source properties do not match target properties:
• Property type uninitialized
• Source entity has no primary key, but we need it for

AI-assisted analysis of greenrobot/greenDAO@0bbb338e17 (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c831f6de1026f0b3. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at DaoGenerator/src/org/greenrobot/greendao/generator/Property.java:97

                        "AUTOINCREMENT is only available to primary key properties of type long/Long");
            }
            property.pkAutoincrement = true;
            return this;
        }

        public PropertyBuilder unique() {
            property.unique = true;
            return this;
        }

        public PropertyBuilder notNull() {
            property.notNull = true;
            return this;
        }

        public PropertyBuilder nonPrimitiveType() {
            if (!property.propertyType.isScalar()) {
                throw new RuntimeException("Type is already non-primitive");
            }
            property.nonPrimitiveType = true;
            return this;
        }

        public PropertyBuilder index() {
            Index index = new Index();
            index.addProperty(property);
            property.entity.addIndex(index);
            return this;
        }

        public PropertyBuilder indexAsc(String indexNameOrNull, boolean isUnique) {
            Index index = new Index();
            index.addPropertyAsc(property);
            if (isUnique) {
                index.makeUnique();
            }

View on GitHub (pinned to 0bbb338e17)