What causes "invalid schema/table provided "%s"" in hasura/graphql-engine?

Use the two-part form schema.table or a bare table name for each --table flag

invalid schema/table provided "%s"

Error message

invalid schema/table provided "%s"

What it means

ExportDatadump validates each --table entry: it must be either 'table' or 'schema.table' (1 or 2 dot-separated parts). Anything with more parts, or other malformed input like empty segments, is rejected with this error before quoting the identifiers for the database dump.

Source

Thrown at cli/seed/create.go:79

	_, err = io.Copy(file, r)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, internalerrors.E(op, err)
	}

	return &fullFilePath, nil
}

func (d *Driver) ExportDatadump(tableNames []string, sourceName string) (io.Reader, error) {
	var op internalerrors.Op = "seed.Driver.ExportDatadump"
	// to support tables starting with capital letters
	modifiedTableNames := make([]string, len(tableNames))

	for idx, val := range tableNames {
		split := strings.Split(val, ".")
		splitLen := len(split)

		if splitLen != 1 && splitLen != 2 {
			return nil, internalerrors.E(op, fmt.Errorf(`invalid schema/table provided "%s"`, val))
		}

		if splitLen == 2 {
			modifiedTableNames[idx] = fmt.Sprintf(`"%s"."%s"`, split[0], split[1])
		} else {
			modifiedTableNames[idx] = fmt.Sprintf(`"%s"`, val)
		}
	}

	pgDumpOpts := []string{"--no-owner", "--no-acl", "--data-only", "--column-inserts"}
	for _, table := range modifiedTableNames {
		pgDumpOpts = append(pgDumpOpts, "--table", table)
	}

	request := hasura.PGDumpRequest{
		Opts:        pgDumpOpts,
		CleanOutput: true,
		SourceName:  sourceName,

View on GitHub (pinned to 724551b9ae)

Solutions

Use the two-part form schema.table or a bare table name for each --table flag
If the schema itself contains a dot, quote/configure it so the value still yields at most two segments
Inspect the exact string being passed (print argv) to find the stray dot

Example fix

// before
ExportDatadump(exportOpts, []string{"mydb.public.users"})

// after
ExportDatadump(exportOpts, []string{"public.users"})

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

for _, t := range tableNames {
    parts := strings.Split(t, ".")
    if len(parts) > 2 || strings.HasPrefix(t, ".") || strings.HasSuffix(t, ".") {
        // reject before calling ExportDatadump
    }
}

Type guard

func isSchemaQualifiedName(s string) bool {
    parts := strings.Split(s, ".")
    if len(parts) == 2 { return parts[0] != "" && parts[1] != "" }
    return len(parts) == 1 && s != ""
}

Prevention

Normalize table inputs to schema.table at the CLI boundary
Strip catalog prefixes (db.schema.table) before passing values

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a table name such as "mydb.public.users" (three dot-separated parts), "a.b.c", or an empty segment like "schema." to the create-seed export step via ExportDatadump.

Common situations: Three-part catalog-qualified names (database.schema.table) copied from a SQL editor, schema names containing dots, or shell scripts splitting table lists incorrectly so fragments get joined with extra dots.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hasura/graphql-engine@724551b9ae (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eec22ff7ac431828. Report an issue: GitHub.