t8y2/dbx · error

table is required

Error message

table is required

What it means

getColumns fetches Hive column metadata for a table and validates that a non-blank table name was supplied before issuing the GetHiveColumns RPC. A table name of "" or whitespace-only cannot be passed to the metadata provider, so the call fails fast with this error.

Source

Thrown at agents/drivers/argo-go/metadata.go:597

		}
	}
	return false
}

// acceptsRoutineType reports whether the requested object types include the
// given routine kind (case-insensitive).
func acceptsRoutineType(objectTypes []string, routineType string) bool {
	for _, objectType := range objectTypes {
		if strings.EqualFold(objectType, routineType) {
			return true
		}
	}
	return false
}

func (server *server) getColumns(schema, table string) ([]columnInfo, error) {
	if strings.TrimSpace(table) == "" {
		return nil, errors.New("table is required")
	}
	schema = firstNonEmpty(schema, server.config.Database)
	metadataResult, metadataErr := server.hiveMetadata(func(ctx context.Context, provider gohive.MetadataProvider) (gohive.MetadataResult, error) {
		return provider.GetHiveColumns(ctx, schema, table, "%")
	})
	if metadataErr == nil {
		rows := newHiveMetadataRows(metadataResult)
		values := make([]columnInfo, 0, len(rows.rows))
		for _, row := range rows.rows {
			name := metadataString(rows.value(row, "COLUMN_NAME"))
			if name == "" {
				continue
			}
			dataType := metadataString(rows.value(row, "TYPE_NAME"))
			columnSize := metadataIntPointer(rows.value(row, "COLUMN_SIZE"))
			values = append(values, columnInfo{
				Name:                   name,
				DataType:               dataType,

View on GitHub (pinned to c0390bff16)

Solutions

1. Ensure the client request includes a non-empty table name
2. Validate table name in the caller before invoking the metadata operation
3. Check argument order — schema is the first parameter, table the second; a swap can leave table empty
4. Default to an explicit table name rather than relying on an empty string to mean 'any'

Example fix

// before
server.getColumns("default", "") // error: table is required
// after
if table := strings.TrimSpace(req.Table); table != "" {
    server.getColumns(req.Schema, table)
}

if strings.TrimSpace(table) == "" {
    return errors.New("table is required")
}

cols, err := server.getColumns(schema, table)
if err != nil && err.Error() == "table is required" {
    return fmt.Errorf("describe requires a table name, got %q", table)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getColumns (via the describe-table / get_columns dispatch path) with table == "" or table == " "; a client request omitting the table parameter; schema optionally defaulted from server.config.Database.

Common situations: Client tool sends describeColumns without the table field; caller transposed schema and table arguments; upstream variable never populated because a prior listing call returned empty names.

Understand the failure class

Background: Missing required parameter errors: what 'X is required' and 'the required X param is missing' mean, and how to fix them — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

• schema and type name are required
• schema and type name are required
• lease, ttl, and preserveLease cannot be specified together
• ttl must be a positive integer
• ETCD_WATCH_SCOPE_INVALID

AI-assisted analysis of t8y2/dbx@c0390bff16 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b8efda0b90d6eab2. Report an issue: GitHub.