# \[:db/id\] pull pattern failing

**URL:** <https://forum.datomic.com/t/db-id-pull-pattern-failing/1204>\
**Category:** Client API\
**Created:** [October 16, 2019, 8:08am UTC](https://forum.datomic.com/t/db-id-pull-pattern-failing/1204 "2019-10-16T08:08:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tslocke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.datomic.com/tslocke/32/233_2.png) [@tslocke](https://forum.datomic.com/u/tslocke)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 8:08am UTC](https://forum.datomic.com/t/db-id-pull-pattern-failing/1204/1 "2019-10-16T08:08:58Z")

</div>

I _think_ this has only started since upgrading to 0.8.81. It definitely worked at one point previously.

I used to be able to pull just the :db/id, e.g. to find the id from my own :db/unique attribute:

```
(db/pull db [:db/id] [:foo/id my-id])

```

That now fails with

```
com.google.common.util.concurrent.UncheckedExecutionException: Syntax error compiling

```

As a workaround I can just use `[*]`. Is such a pattern not allowed, or is this a bug?

Tom

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![marshall](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.datomic.com/marshall/32/48_2.png) [@marshall](https://forum.datomic.com/u/marshall)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 4:18pm UTC](https://forum.datomic.com/t/db-id-pull-pattern-failing/1204/2 "2019-10-16T16:18:11Z")

</div>

I’m unable to reproduce this behavior.  
I can run:

```auto
(d/pull (d/db conn) [:db/id] [:release/gid #uuid "67bbc160-ac45-4caf-baae-a7e9f5180429"])

```

Against the mbrainz sample database and I don’t get an exception.  
What version of Datomic (cloud or onprem) are you using?

-Marshall

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tslocke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.datomic.com/tslocke/32/233_2.png) [@tslocke](https://forum.datomic.com/u/tslocke)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 12:34pm UTC](https://forum.datomic.com/t/db-id-pull-pattern-failing/1204/3 "2019-11-09T12:34:04Z")

</div>

I have these datomic deps,

```
[com.datomic/datomic-free "0.9.5697"]
[com.datomic/client "0.8.81"]
[com.datomic/client-cloud "0.8.78"]

```

I’m also using datomic-client-memdb [1] to use the client API locally

[1] [https://github.com/ComputeSoftware/datomic-client-memdb](https://github.com/ComputeSoftware/datomic-client-memdb)