apache/beam · error · IllegalArgumentException

Either reidentifyConfig or reidentifyTemplateName need to be

Error message

Either reidentifyConfig or reidentifyTemplateName need to be set!

What it means

DLPReidentifyText re-identifies previously de-identified text and needs to know how to perform the re-identification: either an inline ReidentifyConfig or the name of a stored re-identify template. Its builder's build() throws this IllegalArgumentException when both fields are null, since the DLP reidentify call would have no configuration.

Source

Thrown at sdks/java/extensions/ml/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/extensions/ml/DLPReidentifyText.java:168

     *
     * @param delimiter Delimiter to be used when splitting values from input strings into columns.
     */
    public abstract Builder setColumnDelimiter(String delimiter);

    /**
     * Sets ID of Google Cloud project to be used when deidentifying data.
     *
     * @param projectId ID of Google Cloud project to be used when deidentifying data.
     */
    public abstract Builder setProjectId(String projectId);

    abstract DLPReidentifyText autoBuild();

    public DLPReidentifyText build() {
      DLPReidentifyText dlpReidentifyText = autoBuild();
      if (dlpReidentifyText.getReidentifyConfig() == null
          && dlpReidentifyText.getReidentifyTemplateName() == null) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "Either reidentifyConfig or reidentifyTemplateName need to be set!");
      }
      if (dlpReidentifyText.getBatchSizeBytes() > DLP_PAYLOAD_LIMIT_BYTES) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            String.format(
                "Batch size is too large! It should be smaller or equal than %d.",
                DLP_PAYLOAD_LIMIT_BYTES));
      }
      if (dlpReidentifyText.getColumnDelimiter() == null
          && dlpReidentifyText.getHeaderColumns() != null) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "Column delimiter should be set if headers are present.");
      }
      if (dlpReidentifyText.getHeaderColumns() == null
          && dlpReidentifyText.getColumnDelimiter() != null) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "Column headers should be supplied when delimiter is present.");
      }

View on GitHub (pinned to 12126d8942)

Solutions

1. Call .setReidentifyTemplateName("projects/YOUR_PROJECT/locations/LOCATION/deidentifyTemplates/TEMPLATE_ID") pointing at a stored re-identify template.
2. Or call .setReidentifyConfig(ReidentifyConfig.newBuilder()...build()) with an inline configuration.
3. If constructing from config, check that at least one of the two keys exists before building the transform.

Example fix

// before
DLPReidentifyText reidentify = DLPReidentifyText.newBuilder()
    .setProjectId("my-project")
    .build(); // throws
// after
DLPReidentifyText reidentify = DLPReidentifyText.newBuilder()
    .setProjectId("my-project")
    .setReidentifyTemplateName("projects/my-project/locations/global/deidentifyTemplates/my-template")
    .build();

if (reidentifyTemplateName == null && reidentifyConfig == null) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("Provide either reidentifyTemplateName or reidentifyConfig before building DLPReidentifyText");
}

try {
  DLPReidentifyText reidentify = DLPReidentifyText.newBuilder()...build();
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().contains("reidentifyConfig or reidentifyTemplateName")) {
    // supply a reidentify config/template and rebuild
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DLPReidentifyText.newBuilder()...build() without calling either .setReidentifyTemplateName(String) or .setReidentifyConfig(ReidentifyConfig).

Common situations: Copying pipeline code from DLPDeidentifyText/DLPInspectText and forgetting to add the reidentify-specific configuration, or config-driven builds where both optional properties were missing.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Either inspectTemplateName or inspectConfig must be supplied
• Batch size is too large! It should be smaller or equal than
• Column delimiter should be set if headers are present.
• Column headers should be supplied when delimiter is present.
• Timing number 0b" + timingNumber.toString(2) + " has more th

AI-assisted analysis of apache/beam@12126d8942 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/52571e5ed9ee313b. Report an issue: GitHub.