hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · IllegalArgumentException

Cannot parse given string into array of Long. First and last

Error message

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

What it means

LongPrimitiveArrayJavaType maps long[] attributes (e.g. @JdbcTypeCode(SqlTypes.LONG_ARRAY)). fromString() rebuilds the array from the database text form and requires a SQL array literal bounded by '{' and '}'. Strings in any other shape - JSON style '[1,2,3]', a bare comma list '1,2,3', or a truncated value - throw IllegalArgumentException before any element is parsed.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/type/descriptor/java/LongPrimitiveArrayJavaType.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 long[] fromString(CharSequence charSequence) {
		if ( charSequence == null ) {
			return null;
		}
		final List<Long> 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 Long. 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( Long.parseLong( charSequence, elementStart, i, 10 ) );
				elementStart = i + 1;
			}
		}
		final long[] result = new long[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. Store the text as a SQL array literal: '{1,2,3}' (empty array as '{}')
2. Prefer a native array column type (e.g. PostgreSQL bigint[]) so the driver/JDBC binding is used instead of string parsing
3. Add an AttributeConverter or mapping change for JSON-style storage (e.g. hibernate-types JSON type) instead of the primitive-array JavaType
4. Fix existing rows with an UPDATE that rewrites '[..]' to '{..}'

Example fix

// before
UPDATE user_tags SET ids = '[1,2,3]';
// loading the long[] attribute -> IllegalArgumentException

// after
UPDATE user_tags SET ids = '{1,2,3}';

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

if (!isSqlArrayLiteral(text)) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Expected '{1,2,3}': " + text);

static long[] tryParseLongArray(String s) {
    if (!isSqlArrayLiteral(s)) return null;
    try { return LongJavaTypeArrayParse(s); } catch (RuntimeException e) { return null; }
}

catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
    // message: First and last character must be { and }
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Column must hold a SQL array literal like '{1,2,3}': " + raw, e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: The column backing a long[] attribute is a varchar holding '[1,2,3]' (written by Jackson/Gson) instead of '{1,2,3}'; data produced by another framework or hand-written SQL inserts without braces; using array mapping on a database without native array support so Hibernate must round-trip through text

Common situations: Migrating array data from PostgreSQL ('{1,2,3}') to a database where the app or driver wrote JSON arrays; REST payloads persisted directly into the column; seed files with the wrong literal style.

Related errors

• Array element type error
• Illegal null value for array index encountered while reading
• Nested arrays (with the exception of byte[][]) are not suppo
• Basic array has element type '" + componentJavaType.getTypeN
• Cannot parse given string into array of strings. First and l

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/73df458bc1b7087a. Report an issue: GitHub.