From 21394574ed1c62e1876f418bcf1176082e489c2d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Axel Kohlmeyer <akohlmey@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2025 18:11:28 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] stop with error, if trying to use wildcard for vector-style
 variable without upper bound

---
 src/utils.cpp | 3 +++
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/src/utils.cpp b/src/utils.cpp
index 4950e27d0c..31fcb5867e 100644
--- a/src/utils.cpp
+++ b/src/utils.cpp
@@ -1046,6 +1046,9 @@ int utils::expand_args(const char *file, int line, int narg, char **arg, int mod
             if (nhi < MAXSMALLINT) {
               nmax = nhi;
               expandflag = 1;
+            } else {
+              lmp->error->all(file, line, ioffset + iarg,
+                              "Upper bound required to expand vector style variable {}", id);
             }
           }
         }