can1357/oh-my-pi · error · SortError

no input from {}

Error message

no input from {}

What it means

SortError::EmptyInputFile ("no input from ...") is thrown when an input file the sort builtin was asked to read exists but yields no data — e.g. it is an empty regular file or cannot provide any input — so sort reports there is 'no input' from that file. The offending file path is included quoted.

Source

Thrown at crates/pi-builtins/src/sort.rs:2627

	CompressProgExecutionFailed { prog: String, error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("{} terminated abnormally", .prog.quote())]
	CompressProgTerminatedAbnormally { prog: String },

	#[error("cannot create temporary file in {}:", .path.quote())]
	TmpFileCreationFailed { path: PathBuf },

	#[error("extra operand {}\nfile operands cannot be combined with --files0-from\nTry 'sort --help' for more information.", .file.quote())]
	FileOperandsCombined { file: PathBuf },


	#[error("multiple output files specified")]
	MultipleOutputFiles,

	#[error("when reading file names from standard input, no file name of '-' allowed")]
	MinusInStdIn,

	#[error("no input from {}", .file.quote())]
	EmptyInputFile { file: PathBuf },

	#[error("{}:{}: invalid zero-length file name", .file.maybe_quote(), .line_num)]
	ZeroLengthFileName { file: PathBuf, line_num: usize },
}

impl SortError {
	fn message(message: impl Into<String>) -> Self {
		Self::Message(message.into())
	}

	fn code(&self) -> i32 {
		if matches!(self, Self::Disorder { .. }) { 1 } else { 2 }
	}
}

// refs are required because this fn is used by thiserror macro
#[expect(clippy::trivially_copy_pass_by_ref)]

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

1. Check the file is non-empty before sorting: `[ -s "$f" ]` in shell or `fs.metadata().size > 0` programmatically.
2. Skip empty inputs in the caller's file loop.
3. If empty input should be tolerated, handle it upstream (e.g. `sort f 2>/dev/null || true`) or supply a fallback input.
4. Investigate why the producer of that file wrote nothing if emptiness is unexpected.

Example fix

// before: sort each file unconditionally
for f in *.txt; do sort "$f" -o "$f.sorted"; done
// after: skip empty files
for f in *.txt; do [ -s "$f" ] && sort "$f" -o "$f.sorted"; done

import { statSync } from "node:fs";
// skip zero-byte files before sorting
const sortable = files.filter(f => statSync(f).size > 0);

const isNonEmptyFile = (path: string): boolean => {
  try { return statSync(path).size > 0; } catch { return false; }
};

try {
  await sort([file]);
} catch (err) {
  if (String(err).startsWith("no input from")) {
    // tolerate legitimately empty inputs
    logger.warn("skipping empty input", { file });
  } else throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running sort on a zero-byte file: `sort empty.txt`; a truncated download/log that is 0 bytes; a file whose contents vanished between listing and reading (race with deletion/rotation).

Common situations: Pipelines where an upstream producer wrote nothing (failed producer, grep matched nothing redirected to a file); log rotation emptying files mid-run; batch scripts sorting many files where some are legitimately empty.

Related errors

• dates before 1970 are unsupported
• write failed: {}: {}
• open failed: {}: {}
• cannot read: {}: {}
• failed to open temporary file: {}

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f3d73d2650ef2077. Report an issue: GitHub.