hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · IllegalArgumentException

scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types

Error message

scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types

What it means

Error "scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types" thrown in hibernate/hibernate-orm.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/dialect/Dialect.java:6035

				case SqlTypes.BINARY:
				case SqlTypes.VARBINARY:
				case SqlTypes.CLOB:
				case SqlTypes.BLOB:
					size.setLength( javaType.getDefaultSqlLength( Dialect.this, jdbcType ) );
					break;
				case SqlTypes.LONGVARCHAR:
				case SqlTypes.LONGNVARCHAR:
				case SqlTypes.LONGVARBINARY:
					size.setLength( javaType.getLongSqlLength() );
					break;
				case SqlTypes.FLOAT:
				case SqlTypes.DOUBLE:
				case SqlTypes.REAL:
					// this is almost always the thing we use:
					length = null;
					size.setPrecision( javaType.getDefaultSqlPrecision( Dialect.this, jdbcType ) );
					if ( scale != null && scale != 0 ) {
						throw new IllegalArgumentException("scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types");
					}
					// but if the user explicitly specifies the precision, we need to convert it:
					if ( precision != null ) {
						// convert from base 10 (as specified in @Column) to base 2 (as specified by SQL)
						// using the magic of high school math: log_2(10^n) = n*log_2(10) = n*ln(10)/ln(2)
						precision = (int) ceil( precision * LOG_BASE2OF10 );
					}
					break;
				case SqlTypes.TIME:
				case SqlTypes.TIME_WITH_TIMEZONE:
				case SqlTypes.TIME_UTC:
				case SqlTypes.TIMESTAMP:
				case SqlTypes.TIMESTAMP_WITH_TIMEZONE:
				case SqlTypes.TIMESTAMP_UTC:
					length = null;
					size.setPrecision( javaType.getDefaultSqlPrecision( Dialect.this, jdbcType ) );
					if ( scale != null && scale != 0 ) {
						throw new IllegalArgumentException("scale has no meaning for SQL time or timestamp types");

View on GitHub (pinned to fad1729dce)

Solutions

1. Remove the scale attribute from the column mapping.
2. Use a decimal/numeric type if scale is required.

When it happens

Trigger: Triggered when the application calls a Hibernate dialect feature that the configured database dialect cannot provide: scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types.

Common situations: Common when running against a database whose dialect lacks this capability, when a mapping or HQL/Criteria query requests unsupported functionality, or when the wrong dialect is configured for the database in use. Error: scale has no meaning for SQL floating point types.

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b3ddb4bccd07e4b7. Report an issue: GitHub.