influxdata/influxdb · error · Error::NoInput

No input from stdin detected, no string was passed in, and…

Error message

No input from stdin detected, no string was passed in, and no file path was given

What it means

The influxdb3 `query` command requires a query either as a positional string argument, via stdin, or via a file path (`--file`). When none of these supply a query string, this error is thrown from the query.rs Error enum variant `NoInput`.

Solutions

1. Pass the SQL query as a quoted positional argument: `influxdb3 query "SELECT ..."`
2. Pipe the query via stdin: `cat query.sql | influxdb3 query`
3. Supply `--file <path>` pointing to a file containing the query

Example fix

// before
influxdb3 query
// after
influxdb3 query "SELECT * FROM weather"

// shell guard
QUERY="${1:-}"
if [[ -z "$QUERY" && ! -p /dev/stdin && -z "$FILE" ]]; then
  echo "supply a query string, stdin, or --file" >&2; exit 1
fi

When it happens

Trigger: Running `influxdb3 query` with no positional SQL argument, an empty/closed stdin, and no `--file <path>` given.

Common situations: Forgetting to quote the SQL string so the shell passes nothing; piping from an empty stream (`echo -n '' | influxdb3 query`); typo-ing the `--file` flag so no input source is detected.

Understand the failure class

Background: "no subcommand specified" and "... is required": CLI errors when a required argument is missing — this error's family across 13 libraries.

Related errors

• No input from stdin detected, no string was passed in, and…
• is not a valid data type, values are int64, uint64…
• Cannot parse object store config
• cannot write parquet to a terminal, use `--output
• client error

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/147484a9076e9f2a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at influxdb3_commands/src/query.rs:30

use crate::common::Format;

use super::common::InfluxDb3Config;

#[derive(Debug, thiserror::Error)]
pub enum Error {
    #[error(transparent)]
    Client(#[from] influxdb3_client::Error),

    #[error("invlid UTF8 received from server: {0}")]
    Utf8(#[from] Utf8Error),

    #[error("io error: {0}")]
    Io(#[from] io::Error),

    #[error("cannot write parquet to a terminal, use `--output <file>` or pipe the output")]
    NoOutputFileForParquet,
    #[error(
        "No input from stdin detected, no string was passed in,  and no file \
        path was given"
    )]
    NoInput,
}

pub type Result<T> = std::result::Result<T, Error>;

#[derive(Debug, Parser)]
#[clap(visible_alias = "q")]
pub struct Config {
    /// Common InfluxDB 3 server config
    #[clap(flatten)]
    influxdb3_config: InfluxDb3Config,

    /// Override host URL for query operations
    #[clap(long = "query-host", env = "INFLUXDB3_QUERY_HOST_URL")]
    query_host_url: Option<Url>,

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