hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · IllegalArgumentException

Cannot parse given string into array of integers. First and

Error message

Cannot parse given string into array of integers. First and last character must be { and }

What it means

IntegerPrimitiveArrayJavaType.fromString reconstructs an int[] from the array-literal string form Hibernate uses for array-valued columns ('{1,2}'). It throws IllegalArgumentException when the first and last characters are not '{' and '}' — the stored text is not an array literal in the expected shape.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/type/descriptor/java/IntegerPrimitiveArrayJavaType.java:89

		sb.append( value[0] );
		for ( int i = 1; i < value.length; i++ ) {
			sb.append( value[i] );
			sb.append( ',' );
		}
		sb.append( '}' );
		return sb.toString();
	}

	@Override
	public int[] fromString(CharSequence charSequence) {
		if ( charSequence == null ) {
			return null;
		}
		final List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
		final char lastChar = charSequence.charAt( charSequence.length() - 1 );
		final char firstChar = charSequence.charAt( 0 );
		if ( firstChar != '{' || lastChar != '}' ) {
			throw new IllegalArgumentException( "Cannot parse given string into array of integers. First and last character must be { and }" );
		}
		final int len = charSequence.length();
		int elementStart = 1;
		for ( int i = elementStart; i < len; i ++ ) {
			final char c = charSequence.charAt( i );
			if ( c == ',' ) {
				list.add( Integer.parseInt( charSequence, elementStart, i, 10 ) );
				elementStart = i + 1;
			}
		}
		final int[] result = new int[list.size()];
		for ( int i = 0; i < result.length; i ++ ) {
			result[ i ] = list.get( i );
		}
		return result;
	}

	@Override

View on GitHub (pinned to fad1729dce)

Solutions

1. Normalize stored data to the '{1,2}' form Hibernate writes
2. Add an AttributeConverter<int[], String> that tolerates other formats on read
3. Use a native ARRAY column with @JdbcTypeCode(SqlTypes.ARRAY) where supported
4. Keep a single writer for array-as-text columns

Example fix

// before: column text is '1;2;3' -> IllegalArgumentException

// after: data normalized to Hibernate's literal form
UPDATE tags SET ids = '{' || replace(ids, ';', ',') || '}' WHERE ids LIKE '%;%';

static boolean isArrayLiteral(CharSequence s) {
    return s != null && s.length() >= 2
            && s.charAt(0) == '{' && s.charAt(s.length() - 1) == '}';
}

When it happens

Trigger: Reading an int[] attribute whose column text was written in a different format ('[1, 2]', '1;2'); hand-edited or migrated data; dialect/mapping changes that altered how the array is rendered to text.

Common situations: Databases without native ARRAY support storing arrays as text; ETL imports; switching between SqlTypes.ARRAY and varchar-backed mappings.

Related errors

• Cannot parse given string into array of Doubles. First and l
• Cannot parse given string into array of Floats. First and la
• Cannot parse given string into array of Shorts. First and la
• Cannot parse given string into array of strings. First and l
• Cannot parse given string into array of strings. Outside of

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/059024215640ef73. Report an issue: GitHub.