lionsoul2014/ip2region · error

invalid ip address: %s

Error message

invalid ip address: %s

What it means

ParseIP validates its input with net.ParseIP; when the string cannot be parsed as an IP at all, it returns this error. It is the entry-point validation for all IP strings passed into search APIs and benchmarks.

Source

Thrown at binding/golang/xdb/util.go:23

// ---
// @Author Lion <chenxin619315@gmail.com>
// @Date   2022/06/16

package xdb

import (
	"bytes"
	"embed"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net"
	"os"
)

func ParseIP(ip string) ([]byte, error) {
	parsedIP := net.ParseIP(ip)
	if parsedIP == nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid ip address: %s", ip)
	}

	v4 := parsedIP.To4()
	if v4 != nil {
		return v4, nil
	}

	v6 := parsedIP.To16()
	if v6 != nil {
		return v6, nil
	}

	return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid ip address: %s", ip)
}

func IP2String(ip []byte) string {
	return net.IP(ip[:]).String()
}

View on GitHub (pinned to c1a1fc7d59)

Solutions

1. Validate/trim the input string before calling ParseIP; strip any port or CIDR suffix
2. Resolve hostnames to IPs first with net.LookupHost before searching
3. Check that the value from config/env is non-empty and matches an IPv4/IPv6 pattern
4. Use net.ParseIP yourself for an early check and better error messages

Example fix

// before
ip, err := xdb.ParseIP("example.com:80") // invalid ip address
// after
host, _, _ := net.SplitHostPort("example.com:80")
addrs, err := net.LookupHost(host)
ip, err = xdb.ParseIP(addrs[0])

func validIP(s string) bool {
    s = strings.TrimSpace(s)
    if i := strings.LastIndexByte(s, ':'); i > strings.LastIndexByte(s, ']') && net.ParseIP(s) == nil {
        // may contain a port
        if h, _, err := net.SplitHostPort(s); err == nil {
            return net.ParseIP(h) != nil
        }
    }
    return net.ParseIP(s) != nil
}

func isIPString(s string) bool {
    return net.ParseIP(strings.TrimSpace(s)) != nil
}

ip, err := xdb.ParseIP(input)
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot search %q: %w", input, err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling xdb.ParseIP("not-an-ip") or Search with a hostname (e.g. "example.com"), an empty string, an IP with a port ("1.2.3.4:80"), or whitespace-padded input.

Common situations: Users passing hostnames instead of IPs from logs or webhooks; including ports or CIDR suffixes from config files; empty/blank values from environment variables; leading/trailing spaces in CSV inputs.

Related errors

• invalid byte ip address with length=${ipBytes.length}
• invalid ip address `${ip}`
• invalid ip address ({$this->version->name} expected)
• invalid ip address `{}`
• length of the two ips are not the same

AI-assisted analysis of lionsoul2014/ip2region@c1a1fc7d59 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e011d53c86cb9093. Report an issue: GitHub.