Broken interpolation of variables on 10.0.

[Jack12816]

Hey there 👋

I've observed a bug which broke my application code while migrating from activerecord-postgis-adapter 9.0 to 10.0. Consider this:

# in a scope..
where("ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT(? ?)') < ?", lon, lat, meter_radius)

produces out of a sudden:

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid:
  PG::InternalError: ERROR:  parse error - invalid geometry
  LINE 1: ...NT(*) FROM "properties" WHERE ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT($1 ...
                                                               ^
  HINT:  "POINT($1" <-- parse error at position 8 within geometry
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:894:in 'PG::Connection#exec_params'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:894:in 'block (2 levels) in ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::PostgreSQLAdapter#exec_no_cache'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:1004:in 'block in ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::AbstractAdapter#with_raw_connection'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activesupport-7.2.2.1/lib/active_support/concurrency/load_interlock_aware_monitor.rb:23:in 'Thread.handle_interrupt'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activesupport-7.2.2.1/lib/active_support/concurrency/load_interlock_aware_monitor.rb:23:in 'block in ActiveSupport::Concurrency::LoadInterlockAwareMonitorMixin#synchronize'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activesupport-7.2.2.1/lib/active_support/concurrency/load_interlock_aware_monitor.rb:19:in 'Thread.handle_interrupt'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activesupport-7.2.2.1/lib/active_support/concurrency/load_interlock_aware_monitor.rb:19:in 'ActiveSupport::Concurrency::LoadInterlockAwareMonitorMixin#synchronize'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:976:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::AbstractAdapter#with_raw_connection'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:893:in 'block in ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::PostgreSQLAdapter#exec_no_cache'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activesupport-7.2.2.1/lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:58:in 'ActiveSupport::Notifications::Instrumenter#instrument'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:1119:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::AbstractAdapter#log'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:892:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::PostgreSQLAdapter#exec_no_cache'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:872:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::PostgreSQLAdapter#execute_and_clear'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/marginalia-1.11.1/lib/marginalia.rb:91:in 'Marginalia::ActiveRecordInstrumentation#execute_and_clear_with_marginalia'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql/database_statements.rb:66:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::PostgreSQL::DatabaseStatements#internal_exec_query'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:647:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::DatabaseStatements#select'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:73:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::DatabaseStatements#select_all'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/query_cache.rb:251:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::QueryCache#select_all'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:486:in 'block (2 levels) in ActiveRecord::Calculations#execute_simple_calculation'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:415:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::ConnectionPool#with_connection'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_handling.rb:296:in 'ActiveRecord::ConnectionHandling#with_connection'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:485:in 'block in ActiveRecord::Calculations#execute_simple_calculation'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation.rb:1452:in 'ActiveRecord::Relation#skip_query_cache_if_necessary'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:484:in 'ActiveRecord::Calculations#execute_simple_calculation'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:441:in 'ActiveRecord::Calculations#perform_calculation'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:245:in 'ActiveRecord::Calculations#calculate'
# /usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-7.2.2.1/lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:102:in 'ActiveRecord::Calculations#count'

The produced log looks interesting:

D, [2025-06-26T12:22:52.265829 #817] DEBUG -- :   Property Count (0.5ms)
/*line:spec/models/property/search_spec.rb:106*/
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties" WHERE ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT($1 $2)') < $3
[[nil, 12.2821163], [nil, 51.36048700000001], [nil, 5000]] 
  ^-- this should be $1, $2, $n.., but its nil instead

When I generate the sql only everything looks fine:

where("ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT(? ?)') < ?", lon, lat, meter_radius).to_sql

# SELECT "properties".* FROM "properties" 
# WHERE ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT(12.2821163 51.36048700000001)') < 5000 
# ORDER BY "properties"."created_at" ASC

To get it back working I had to fiddle around with rgeo to generate the point representation as string which I can pass to AR:

where('ST_Distance(lonlat, ?) < ?',
      RGeo::Geographic::Factory.new('Spherical').point(lon, lat).to_s,
      meter_radius)

but this looks like a regression to me, because there is no changelog here which points this out.

---

Env details:

Ruby: 3.4.4 (2025-05-14 revision a38531fd3f) +PRISM [x86_64-linux]
Rails: 7.2.2.1
activerecord-postgis-adapter: 10.0.1
PostgreSQL: 17.5 (Debian 17.5-1.pgdg120+1)
PostGiS: 3.5.2+dfsg-1.pgdg120+1 (postgresql-17-postgis-3)

[pedros007]

Just curious if this still happens if you convert to strings:

where("ST_Distance(lonlat, 'POINT(? ?)') < ?", lon.to_s, lat.to_s, meter_radius.to_s)

If that fixes things perhaps this string quoting patch needs some work.

[Jack12816]

Tested the string casting of the parameters this morning like suggest, but it didn't do the trick. The same error remains.

[pedros007]

Huh, that is a weird one! I just tried myself

x = 12.2821163; y = 51.36048700000001; z  = 5000
SomeModel.where("ST_Distance('POINT(12.2821163 51.36048700000001)', 'POINT(? ?)') < ?", x, y, z)

SELECT "some_models".* FROM "some_models" WHERE (ST_Distance('POINT(12.2821163 51.36048700000001)', 'POINT($1 $2)') < $3) /* loading for pp */ LIMIT $4  [[nil, 12.2821163], [nil, 51.36048700000001], [nil, 5000], ["LIMIT", 11]]
An error occurred when inspecting the object: #<ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid:"PG::IndeterminateDatatype: ERROR:  could not determine data type of parameter $1\n">

but doing unsafe string interpolation directly works:

x = 12.2821163; y = 51.36048700000001; z  = 5000
SomeModel.where("ST_Distance('POINT(12.2821163 51.36048700000001)', 'POINT(#{x} #{y})') < #{z}")

activerecord-postgis-adapter (11.0.0)
Ruby: ruby 3.3.8 (2025-04-09 revision b200bad6cd) [x86_64-linux]
Rails: 8.0.2
activerecord-postgis-adapter: 10.0.1
PostgreSQL: 13.15 on x86_64-pc-linux-musl
PostGiS: 3.4.2

Sharing this brain dump in case it's helpful for someone else to continue debugging. I tried the following in a rails console:

trace = TracePoint.new(:line) do |tp|
  if tp.path == "/usr/local/bundle/gems/activerecord-postgis-adapter-11.0.0/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgis/quoting.rb" && tp.lineno == 8
    binding.break
  end
end
trace.enable

x = 12.2821163; y = 51.36048700000001; z  = 5000
SomeModel.where("ST_Distance('POINT(12.2821163 51.36048700000001)', 'POINT(? ?)') < ?", x, y, z)

and then stepping through it does look like the quoting is being delegated to

https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/7f309f0d481b8b6cd74e36eb16c2c031ba57bd76/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/quoting.rb#L102

However, the query ultimately winds up with that first $1 argument resolving to [nil, 12.2821163] when it should be something like ["SOME_STRING", 12.2821163]. The closest issue I could discover in ActiveRecord is rails/rails#52643, but maybe that's some entirely different problem.

I'm confused why it's resolving to the abstract adapter and not the postgres adapter, which has its own serialization method for Numeric types. If it go to that Postgres adapter perhaps it would just work?

One common pattern between this issue & other recent quoting issues might be around ActiveRecord-7.2, but I am not able to try and bisect the specific commit/version that caused probems and nothing jumps out in the AR-7.2 changelog.