languagetool-org/languagetool · error

Input file does not contain specified column

Error message

Input file does not contain specified column 

What it means

RuleDetails.main reads an input CSV and validates that the user-specified column name exists in the original header before transforming records. It throws a RuntimeException when the requested column is absent from the CSV header.

Source

Thrown at languagetool-dev/src/main/java/org/languagetool/dev/RuleDetails.java:103

    RuleDetails details = new RuleDetails(Languages.getLanguageForShortCode(langCode), ngramPath);

    CSVFormat format = CSVFormat.RFC4180.withFirstRecordAsHeader();

    try (CSVParser parser = CSVParser.parse(new File(inputFile), Charset.defaultCharset(), format)) {
      try (CSVPrinter printer = new CSVPrinter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(outputFile)), format)) {
        Map<String, Integer> oldHeader = parser.getHeaderMap();
        List<String> newHeader = new ArrayList<>(Collections.nCopies(oldHeader.size(), null));

        for (Map.Entry<String, Integer> entry : oldHeader.entrySet()) {
          newHeader.set(entry.getValue(), entry.getKey());
        }
        newHeader.add("description");
        newHeader.add("category");
        printer.printRecord(newHeader);

        if (!oldHeader.containsKey(column)) {
          throw new RuntimeException("Input file does not contain specified column " + column);
        }

        List<CSVRecord> records = parser.getRecords();


        records.stream().sequential().map(record -> {
          String ruleId = record.get(column);
          Rule rule = details.getRuleById(ruleId);
          List<String> transformedValues = new ArrayList<>();
          record.iterator().forEachRemaining(transformedValues::add);
          if (rule == null) {
            transformedValues.add("");
            transformedValues.add("");
          } else {
            transformedValues.add(rule.getDescription());
            transformedValues.add(rule.getCategory().getId().toString());
          }
          return transformedValues;

View on GitHub (pinned to 2e990059ce)

Solutions

1. Check the actual header names in the input CSV and pass an exact match for the column
2. Run the tool with the column name exactly as spelled in the file (case-sensitive)
3. Inspect/clean the CSV header (remove BOM, trailing spaces) if the column looks correct

Example fix

// before
mvn exec:java ... -Dexec.args="--column patternId rules.csv"
// after
head -1 rules.csv  # confirm header, then use exact name
mvn exec:java ... -Dexec.args="--column pattern_id rules.csv"

try (CSVParser p = CSVFormat.DEFAULT.parse(reader)) {
  Set<String> headers = p.getHeaderNames();
  if (!headers.contains(column)) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Column not in CSV: " + column);
}

try { new RuleDetails().main(args); } catch (RuntimeException e) { if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Input file does not contain specified column")) { System.err.println("Check header names with: head -1 <csv>"); } }

When it happens

Trigger: Running RuleDetails with a --column value that does not match any header in the input CSV, including case/whitespace mismatches or columns added only in newer file versions.

Common situations: Typo in the column name; using a column name from a different CSV format; BOM or trailing spaces in headers preventing exact match.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Unknown argument", "Invalid value", and "must be one of": invalid CLI argument errors explained — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Found more than one spell rule:
• No speller rule found for

AI-assisted analysis of languagetool-org/languagetool@2e990059ce (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e4e15c24ca429822. Report an issue: GitHub.