IllegalArgumentException: Invalid column

java android sqlite android-contentprovider illegalargumentexception
Mohit Deshpande picture Mohit Deshpande · Jan 15, 2011 · Viewed 17.5k times · Source

Here is the logcat:

01-15 16:06:03.622: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.mohit.geo2do/com.mohit.geo2do.activities.TaskEdit}: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid column due_date
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2496)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2512)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2200(ActivityThread.java:119)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1863)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4363)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:862)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:620)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300): Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid column due_date
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteQueryBuilder.computeProjection(SQLiteQueryBuilder.java:508)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteQueryBuilder.buildQuery(SQLiteQueryBuilder.java:356)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteQueryBuilder.query(SQLiteQueryBuilder.java:309)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteQueryBuilder.query(SQLiteQueryBuilder.java:266)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at com.mohit.geo2do.provider.TasksProvider.query(TasksProvider.java:174)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.content.ContentProvider$Transport.query(ContentProvider.java:130)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.content.ContentResolver.query(ContentResolver.java:202)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at com.mohit.geo2do.activities.TaskEdit.onCreate(TaskEdit.java:105)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047)
01-15 16:06:03.657: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(22300):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2459)

The line that's associated with it is:

private Cursor task;
private Uri uri;
private String[] PROJECTION { 
    Tasks._ID, Tasks.TITLE, Tasks.COMPLETED, Tasks.DUE_DATE, Tasks.IMPORTANCE, Tasks.NOTES
};
...
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.edit_task);
    ...
    uri = getIntent().getData();
    task = getContentResolver().query(uri, PROJECTION, null, null, null);
} 
...

What could be the problem? The database is created just fine. Is there any other code you'd need to see?

UPDATE:
I am VERY sure this column exists. I queried the database with this:

Cursor c = db.rawQuery("SELECT * FROM tasks LIMIT 1", null);
for (int i = 0; i < c.getColumnNames().length; i++) {
    Log.v(TAG, c.getColumnNames()[i]);
}

And in LogCat:

01-15 16:52:07.857: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): Creating database...
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): _id
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): title
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): completed
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): due_date
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): notes
01-15 16:52:07.862: VERBOSE/TasksProvider(24325): importance

So the column DOES exist.

Answer

DMH picture DMH · Jul 21, 2011

The column undoubtedly does exist in your database, but if you haven't added the column to a thing called the projection map, you'll get the "invalid column" error you're seeing. You can add the projection map via a query builder object, like this:

// The projection map is a hashmap of strings
HashMap<String, String> MyProjectionMap;
MyProjectionMap = new HashMap<String, String>();

// Add column mappings to the projection map
MyProjectionMap.put(Tasks._ID, Tasks._ID);
MyProjectionMap.put(Tasks.TITLE, Tasks.TITLE);
[...]

SQLiteQueryBuilder qb;
qb.setTables("tasks");
qb.setProjectionMap(MyProjectionMap)

// Then do your query
Cursor c = qb.query(db, projection, ...)

To understand what happens, look in the source for the SQLiteQueryBuilder class, and you'll see the following:

private String[] computeProjection(String[] projectionIn) {
    if (projectionIn != null && projectionIn.length > 0) {
       if (mProjectionMap != null) {
          [...]
          for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
             String userColumn = projectionIn[i];
             String column = mProjectionMap.get(userColumn);
             [...]
             if (!mStrictProjectionMap && ( userColumn.contains(" AS ") || userColumn.contains(" as "))) {
                /* A column alias already exist */
                projection[i] = userColumn;
                continue;
             }
             throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid column " + projectionIn[i]);
          }
      }
[...]

Basically it's checking the columns you requested in your projection against a list of "allowed" columns, and you can see that if the map does not contain the column from your projection, it will throw an IllegalArgumentException, just as you saw. (I imagine this checking against the map is a security feature to prevent SQL-based attacks from people abusing your content provider, but that's just a guess.)

Note also that if you set "strict" projection maps in your query builder:

qb.setStrictProjectionMap(true);

Then in that case it expects you to know the exact column names... If you don't set it, it checks for the "AS" column alias -- I think that explains the "weird fix" you discovered.

Hope this helps.

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