twpayne/chezmoi · error

empty directory name

Error message

empty directory name

What it means

errEmptyDirName is a sentinel error in chezmoi's source attribute parsing (internal/chezmoi/attr.go:11). parseDirAttr returns it when the directory name being parsed is an empty string. Directory names in chezmoi's source state encode target attributes (prefixes, literal markers), so an empty name cannot be interpreted as any valid target path.

Source

Thrown at internal/chezmoi/attr.go:11

package chezmoi

import (
	"errors"
	"io/fs"
	"log/slog"
	"strings"
)

var (
	errEmptyDirName  = errors.New("empty directory name")
	errEmptyFilename = errors.New("empty filename")
)

// A SourceFileTargetType is a the type of a target represented by a file in the
// source state. A file in the source state can represent a file, script, or
// symlink in the target state.
type SourceFileTargetType int

// Source file types.
const (
	SourceFileTypeCreate SourceFileTargetType = iota
	SourceFileTypeFile
	SourceFileTypeModify
	SourceFileTypeRemove
	SourceFileTypeScript
	SourceFileTypeSymlink
)

View on GitHub (pinned to f901167e46)

Solutions

1. Check the source state directory entries; find and fix or remove the entry with an empty base name.
2. Validate directory names are non-empty before passing them to parseDirAttr orchezmoi source-state APIs.
3. Re-create the affected source directory with a valid attribute-encoded name.

Example fix

// before
chezmoi.ParseDirAttr("")
// after
if name == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot parse dir attr: name is empty")
}
attr := chezmoi.ParseDirAttr(name)

if name == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("skipping source dir entry: empty name")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling parseDirAttr with an empty string as the directory name, e.g. when walking a source state where a directory entry yields a zero-length base name.

Common situations: Corrupted or hand-edited source state directories; filesystem oddities producing empty base names; programmatic construction of source state entries without validation.

Related errors

• empty filename
• %s: unknown entry type
• %s: parse error
• %s: invalid pattern
• %s: parent directory not in source state

AI-assisted analysis of twpayne/chezmoi@f901167e46 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/62effe1d1bee0dea. Report an issue: GitHub.