U_PARSE_ERROR

U_PARSE_ERROR

Error message

icupkg: syntax error (more than one '*') in item pattern "%s"

What it means

icupkg accepts item patterns with at most one '*' wildcard (a prefix and optional suffix). If a pattern contains two or more asterisks, parsing is ambiguous and the tool exits with U_PARSE_ERROR. This affects findNext/match operations used by -l/-x/-r item selectors.

Source

Thrown at deps/icu-small/source/tools/toolutil/package.cpp:959

        return;
    }

    findPrefix=pattern;
    findSuffix=nullptr;
    findSuffixLength=0;

    wild=strchr(pattern, '*');
    if(wild==nullptr) {
        // no wildcard
        findPrefixLength = static_cast<int32_t>(strlen(pattern));
    } else {
        // one wildcard
        findPrefixLength = static_cast<int32_t>(wild - pattern);
        findSuffix=wild+1;
        findSuffixLength = static_cast<int32_t>(strlen(findSuffix));
        if(nullptr!=strchr(findSuffix, '*')) {
            // two or more wildcards
            fprintf(stderr, "icupkg: syntax error (more than one '*') in item pattern \"%s\"\n", pattern);
            exit(U_PARSE_ERROR);
        }
    }

    if(findPrefixLength==0) {
        findNextIndex=0;
    } else {
        findNextIndex=findItem(findPrefix, findPrefixLength);
    }
}

int32_t
Package::findNextItem() {
    const char *name, *middle, *treeSep;
    int32_t idx, nameLength, middleLength;

    if(findNextIndex<0) {
        return -1;

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b2de5e052)

Solutions

Reduce the pattern to a single wildcard, e.g. 'foo*bar' instead of 'foo*bar*'.
Quote the pattern to prevent shell glob expansion from injecting extra '*' characters.
Run two separate icupkg invocations with single-wildcard patterns if you need broader matching.

Example fix

# before
icupkg in.dat -x 'res_*_*.res'

# after - single wildcard, quoted
icupkg in.dat -x 'res_*'

Defensive patterns

Strategy: type-guard

Validate before calling

# Reject item patterns with more than one '*' before passing to icupkg.
valid_pattern() {
  local p="$1"
  # remove the first '*', ensure none remain
  [ "${p/\*}" = "$p" ] && return 0   # zero wildcards: ok
  rest="${p#*\*}"
  case "$rest" in *'*'*) return 1 ;; *) return 0 ;; esac
}
valid_pattern "$PAT" || { echo "pattern '$PAT' has >1 wildcard" >&2; exit 1; }
icupkg in.dat -x "$PAT"

Type guard

// TypeScript/JS type guard for an icupkg item pattern (at most one '*').
function isIcupkgItemPattern(p: string): boolean {
  const first = p.indexOf('*');
  if (first === -1) return true;            // no wildcard
  return p.indexOf('*', first + 1) === -1;  // no second wildcard
}

Prevention

Quote icupkg patterns to stop the shell from expanding globs.
Use at most one '*' per pattern; run multiple icupkg calls for broader matching.
Add a pattern validator in build scripts that compose wildcard fragments.

When it happens

Trigger: In the pattern parser, after locating the first '*' and computing findSuffix, 'strchr(findSuffix, '*')' returns non-null (a second wildcard). Fires for patterns like 'foo*bar*baz' or '**'.

Common situations: Shell-glob habits leaking into icupkg item patterns; a typo doubling the asterisk; scripting that concatenates wildcard fragments producing '**'.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nodejs/node@1b2de5e052 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b1e05e6a61725a5c. Report an issue: GitHub.