Invalid table name format '{}'. Expected 'schema.table' or '

Error message

Invalid table name format '{}'. Expected 'schema.table' or 'database.schema.table'.

What it means

Catch-all rejection in the same SQL Server CDC table-name parser: after splitting on '.', any result other than 2 or 3 parts (0, 4+, e.g. 'server.db.dbo.table' or a trailing dot) fails. The parser strictly supports only 'schema.table' and 'database.schema.table'.

Source

Thrown at src/frontend/src/handler/create_table.rs:1086

                        let schema_name = parts[0];
                        let table_name = parts[1];
                        (schema_name, table_name)
                    }
                    1 => {
                        // Format: table only
                        // Reject with clear error message
                        return Err(anyhow!(
                            "Invalid table name format '{}'. For SQL Server CDC, you must specify the schema name. \
                             Use 'schema.table' format (e.g., 'dbo.{}') or 'database.schema.table' format (e.g., '{}.dbo.{}').",
                            external_table_name,
                            external_table_name,
                            source_database_name,
                            external_table_name
                        ).into());
                    }
                    _ => {
                        // Invalid format (4+ parts or empty)
                        return Err(anyhow!(
                            "Invalid table name format '{}'. Expected 'schema.table' or 'database.schema.table'.",
                            external_table_name
                        ).into());
                    }
                };

                // Insert schema and table names into connector properties
                with_options.insert(SCHEMA_NAME_KEY.into(), schema_name.into());
                with_options.insert(TABLE_NAME_KEY.into(), table_name.into());

                // Normalize external_table_name to 'schema.table' format
                // This ensures consistency with extract_table_name() in message.rs
                let normalized_external_table_name = format!("{}.{}", schema_name, table_name);
                return Ok((with_options, normalized_external_table_name));
            }
            _ => {
                return Err(RwError::from(anyhow!(
                    "connector {} is not supported for cdc table",

View on GitHub (pinned to 6469eb736d)

Solutions

Reduce the name to 'schema.table' or 'database.schema.table'.
Remove duplicated separators (e.g. 'dbo..t' -> 'dbo.t') and any trailing dot.
For cross-server access, connect with the correct host/port options instead of encoding the server in the table name.
Wrap a quoted ('"My Schema".Table') identifier is not supported here for SQL Server; use unquoted simple names.

Example fix

// before
WITH (connector = 'sqlserver-cdc', table_name = 'srv.mydb.dbo.events')
// after
WITH (connector = 'sqlserver-cdc', database_name = 'mydb', table_name = 'dbo.events')

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const parts = name.split('.');
if (parts.length !== 2 && parts.length !== 3) throw new Error(`Use 'schema.table' or 'database.schema.table', got: ${name}`);

Type guard

const isSqlServerCdcName = (n) => typeof n === 'string' && /^[^.]+(\.[^.]+){1,2}$/.test(n);

Prevention

Strip server/link prefixes before generating DDL; encode server info in connection options.
Reject empty segments (double dots) in your DDL builder.
Trim whitespace and trailing dots from config-driven table names.

When it happens

Trigger: table_name = 'a.b.c.d' (4 parts), an empty string, or a name with consecutive dots like 'dbo..customers' passed to a sqlserver-cdc CREATE TABLE.

Common situations: Users paste a fully qualified linked-server style name ('srv.db.dbo.table'); accidental double dots from templated DDL; copy-paste with trailing whitespace or a trailing period.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/805945dcb561b192. Report an issue: GitHub.