fix: use directory-level unpack patterns to avoid minimatch length limit#178
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akkay-fp wants to merge 3 commits intoelectron:mainfrom
Open
fix: use directory-level unpack patterns to avoid minimatch length limit#178akkay-fp wants to merge 3 commits intoelectron:mainfrom
akkay-fp wants to merge 3 commits intoelectron:mainfrom
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When merging ASARs for universal builds, the unpack pattern was
constructed by listing every individual unpacked file path in a brace
expansion like `{file1,file2,...}`. For projects with many unpacked
files (e.g. auto-unpacked native modules), this pattern can exceed
minimatch's 64 KiB limit, causing a "pattern is too long" TypeError.
This change groups unpacked files by their top-level directory (e.g.
`node_modules/pkg` or `dist/main`) and uses `**` glob patterns instead.
This reduces thousands of entries to a handful of directory patterns
while preserving the same unpack behavior.
Fixes electron-userland/electron-builder#7044
erickzhao
reviewed
Mar 10, 2026
src/asar-utils.ts
Outdated
| // listing every file individually. When there are many unpacked files | ||
| // (e.g. auto-unpacked native modules) the old brace-expansion approach | ||
| // can exceed minimatch's 64 KiB pattern-length limit. | ||
| // See: https://github.com/electron/universal/issues/XXX |
Member
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Do we have an open issue for this in the repo? Or was this supposed to link to the PR?
Author
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That was an oversight on my end. I haven't opened a separate issue because the PR description covers the problem comprehensively. I have updated the link to point here.
Author
|
@erickzhao I ran Prettier and pushed the latest changes to resolve the CI lint test case failures. Also, just a heads-up that the recent commit from @Akshay-akkay is from my personal GitHub account, as I was working on this from my own machine. Let me know if you need anything else! |
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Summary
When merging ASARs for universal macOS builds, the
unpackpattern passed toasar.createPackageWithOptionsis constructed by listing every individual unpacked file path in a brace expansion:{/tmp/x64-.../file1,/tmp/x64-.../file2,...}.For projects with many unpacked files (e.g. apps using native modules like
sharp,better-sqlite3,ag-psdthat get auto-unpacked by electron-builder'sdetectUnpackedDirs), this pattern can easily exceed minimatch's 64 KiB pattern length limit, causing:Fix
Instead of listing every individual file path, group unpacked files by their top-level directory (e.g.
node_modules/sharp,node_modules/@img/sharp-darwin-arm64,dist/main) and construct**glob patterns. This reduces thousands of entries to a handful of compact patterns while preserving identical unpack behavior.Before (3000+ files → ~400KB pattern):
After (6 directories → ~500 byte pattern):
Related Issues
app-builder-libin PR #8725, but the@electron/universalmergeASARscode path was not addressedTest Plan
sharp,better-sqlite3,ag-psd,fsevents,exiftool)--mac --universal) completes successfully with the fixDisclaimer: I took claude help for clean code comments and PR creation.
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