Error: No dest file provided in properties or via command…

Error message

Error: No dest file provided in properties or via command line --multiWordRulesFile

What it means

BuildMultiWordRules.main requires an output destination for the inferred multi-word rules, taken from the 'multiWordRulesFile' property. If it is null after parsing args, the tool logs this error and exits without computing anything. It guards against inferring rules that could never be persisted.

Solutions

Add -multiWordRulesFile path/to/output.txt to the command line.
Ensure exact spelling/casing of the multiWordRulesFile flag.
Verify the destination directory exists and is writable to avoid a later write failure.
If a properties file is used instead, add multiWordRulesFile=<path> to it.

Example fix

// before
java -cp ... BuildMultiWordRules -trainFile train.conllu
// after
java -cp ... BuildMultiWordRules -trainFile train.conllu -multiWordRulesFile mw-rules.txt

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

Properties p = StringUtils.argsToProperties(args);
if (p.getProperty("multiWordRulesFile") == null) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("-multiWordRulesFile <output> is required");
}

Prevention

Use a canonical script with all required flags in one place.
Copy example commands verbatim rather than trimming flags.
Pre-create the output directory before invoking.

When it happens

Trigger: Running BuildMultiWordRules with -trainFile supplied but no -multiWordRulesFile <path>, so properties.getProperty("multiWordRulesFile") returns null.

Common situations: Assuming rules print to stdout by default; misspelling the flag (e.g. -multiwordRulesFile); copying only the trainFile flag from an example command.

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

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2a5dcb8e513e7468. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/process/stattok/BuildMultiWordRules.java:31

public class BuildMultiWordRules {
  private static final Redwood.RedwoodChannels logger = Redwood.channels(StatTokSentTrainer.class);

  // disallow making this class
  private BuildMultiWordRules() {}

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    Properties properties 	= StringUtils.argsToProperties(args);
    String trainFile 		= properties.getProperty("trainFile", null);
    String multiWordRulesFile 	= properties.getProperty("multiWordRulesFile", null);

    if (trainFile == null){
      logger.err("Error: No training file provided in properties or via command line --trainFile");
      return;
    }

    if (multiWordRulesFile == null){
      logger.err("Error: No dest file provided in properties or via command line --multiWordRulesFile");
      return;
    }

    Map<String, String[]> rules = StatTokSentTrainer.inferMultiWordRules(trainFile);
    StatTokSentTrainer.writeMultiWordRules(multiWordRulesFile, rules);
  }
}

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