quarkusio/quarkus · error · PSQLException

DATA_ERROR

DATA_ERROR

Error message

Failed to re-encode xml data.

What it means

PgSQLXML.getBinaryStream() re-encodes an in-memory XML string to bytes using the connection's encoding. An IOException here should be impossible (the data was just decoded), so the code throws a PSQLException with SQLState DATA_ERROR and the message 'Failed to re-encode xml data.'. This is a GraalVM substitution of the PostgreSQL driver's PgSQLXML class.

Source

Thrown at extensions/jdbc/jdbc-postgresql/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/jdbc/postgresql/runtime/graal/PgSQLXML.java:136

    @Substitute
    @Override
    public synchronized InputStream getBinaryStream() throws SQLException {
        checkFreed();
        ensureInitialized();

        if (data == null) {
            return null;
        }

        try {
            return new ByteArrayInputStream(conn.getEncoding().encode(data));
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            // This should be a can't happen exception. We just
            // decoded this data, so it would be surprising that
            // we couldn't encode it.
            // For this reason don't make it translatable.
            throw new PSQLException("Failed to re-encode xml data.", PSQLState.DATA_ERROR, ioe);
        }
    }

    @Substitute
    @Override
    public synchronized Reader getCharacterStream() throws SQLException {
        checkFreed();
        ensureInitialized();

        if (data == null) {
            return null;
        }

        return new StringReader(data);
    }

    // We must implement this unsafely because that's what the
    // interface requires. Because it says we're returning T

View on GitHub (pinned to e1c734241f)

Solutions

  1. Use a UTF-8 connection encoding (client_encoding=UTF8) so re-encoding cannot fail.
  2. Inspect the chained IOException cause to identify the encoding problem.
  3. Prefer getCharacterStream()/getString() over getBinaryStream() when handling XML data.
  4. Update the quarkus-jdbc-postgresql extension to pick up fixed PgSQLXML substitutions.

Example fix

// before
jdbc:postgresql://host/db?options=-c%20client_encoding%3DLATIN1
// after
jdbc:postgresql://host/db?options=-c%20client_encoding%3DUTF8
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

boolean utf8Ok = "UTF-8".equalsIgnoreCase(connEncoding);
// ensure client_encoding=UTF8 before using SQLXML binary streams

Try / catch

try (InputStream is = sqlxml.getBinaryStream()) {
    // consume xml bytes
} catch (PSQLException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().contains("Failed to re-encode xml data.")) {
        log.error("Re-encode failed; use UTF-8 client_encoding or getString()", e);
        String xml = sqlxml.getString(); // fallback
    } else { throw e; }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getBinaryStream() on a SQLXML object whose charset encoding back to bytes fails — e.g. the connection encoding cannot represent the decoded data, or the encoding lookup throws in native mode.

Common situations: Non-UTF8 client_encoding values; characters in the XML not representable in the connection charset; native-image-specific encoding issues.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of quarkusio/quarkus@e1c734241f (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9396c66baffbe587. Report an issue: GitHub.