code: protected AbstractType parseType(String type) throws IOException
      {
          try
          {
              // always treat counters like longs, specifically CCT.compose is not what we need
              if (type != null && type.equals("org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.CounterColumnType"))
                      return LongType.instance;
              return TypeParser.parse(type);
          }
          catch (ConfigurationException e)
          {
              throw new IOException(e);
          }
          catch (SyntaxException e)
          {
              throw new IOException(e);
          }
      }
docs: parse the string to a cassandra data type