jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · EmptyResultError

BBC ${raw} feed returned no items.

Error message

BBC ${raw} feed returned no items.

What it means

EmptyResultError from `bbc topic` when the RSS feed was fetched successfully but `parseRssItems(xml)` produced zero items. The library treats a parsed-but-empty feed as a result-level failure so users know the topic is valid yet returned no headlines.

Source

Thrown at clis/bbc/topic.js:47

    browser: false,
    args: [
        { name: 'topic', positional: true, required: true, help: `Section name (${TOPICS.join(' / ')})` },
        { name: 'limit', type: 'int', default: 20, help: 'Max headlines (1-50)' },
    ],
    columns: ['rank', 'title', 'description', 'pubDate', 'url'],
    func: async (args) => {
        const raw = String(args.topic ?? '').trim().toLowerCase().replace(/[\s-]+/g, '_');
        if (!TOPICS.includes(raw)) {
            throw new ArgumentError(
                `bbc topic "${args.topic}" is not supported`,
                `Supported topics: ${TOPICS.join(', ')}`,
            );
        }
        const limit = requireBoundedInt(args.limit, 20, 50);
        const xml = await bbcFetchRss(`${raw}/rss.xml`, `bbc topic ${raw}`);
        const items = parseRssItems(xml);
        if (!items.length) {
            throw new EmptyResultError('bbc topic', `BBC ${raw} feed returned no items.`);
        }
        return items.slice(0, limit).map((it, i) => ({
            rank: i + 1,
            title: it.title,
            description: it.description,
            pubDate: pubDateToIso(it.pubDate),
            url: it.link,
        }));
    },
});

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Retry later — the feed may be temporarily empty or mid-publish.
2. Check the raw XML at https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/<topic>/rss.xml to confirm items exist.
3. If the feed uses Atom <entry> tags, update/fix the RSS parser to handle that format.
4. Try a different topic to confirm the parser works generally.

Example fix

// before
const items = parseRssItems(xml);
// after
let items = parseRssItems(xml);
if (!items.length) items = parseAtomEntries(xml); // fallback for Atom feeds
if (!items.length) throw new EmptyResultError('bbc topic', `BBC ${raw} feed returned no items.`);

// after fetch: sanity-check the XML has items before full parse
if (!/<item[\s>]/.test(xml) && !/<entry[\s>]/.test(xml)) throw new Error('feed contains no items');

const xmlHasItems = (xml) => typeof xml === 'string' && /<(item|entry)[\s>]/.test(xml);

try {
  const items = await cli.run(['bbc','topic', topic]);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.name === 'EmptyResultError') {
    // fall back to another topic or cached headlines
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: `bbc topic <valid-topic>` where BBC's feed returns valid XML with no <item> elements — new/low-traffic topics, feed temporarily cleared, or XML whose structure the parser doesn't recognize.

Common situations: BBC deploys a feed with only <entry> (Atom) elements instead of <item>, brand-new topic feeds with no published stories yet, transient BBC publishing glitches, parser not handling namespaces (e.g. media:rss extensions breaking item extraction).

Understand the failure class

Background: EmptyResultError / "no results found": when an API or scraper succeeds but returns zero rows — this error's family across 9 libraries.

Related errors

• Medium tag "${tag}" RSS feed has no items.
• ${label} request failed: ${err?.message ?? err}
• NOT_FOUND
• NOT_FOUND
• The selected players were not both present in the resolved m

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a22b68cfafb4e346. Report an issue: GitHub.