stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · critical · RuntimeIOException

No input file provided (use -textFile)

Error message

No input file provided (use -textFile)

What it means

DependencyParser.test() wraps any IOException that occurs while opening the -textFile input source (file or stdin) in a RuntimeIOException with this message. The parser needs a readable text input to parse; if the file cannot be opened (missing, unreadable, bad path) the whole test run is aborted. The '(use -textFile)' hint points at the CLI flag that supplies the input.

Solutions

1. Verify the -textFile path exists and is readable (ls -l) before running the parser.
2. Run with an absolute path to eliminate working-directory confusion.
3. Check file permissions / that it is a regular file, not a directory.
4. Ensure the encoding matches the file's actual charset to avoid decode-time IO errors.

Example fix

// before
java -cp stanford-corenlp.jar edu.stanford.nlp.parser.nndep.DependencyParser -textFile input.tx
// after
java -cp stanford-corenlp.jar edu.stanford.nlp.parser.nndep.DependencyParser -textFile /abs/path/input.txt

java.io.File f = new java.io.File(textFilePath);
if (textFilePath == null || (!textFilePath.equals("-") && (!f.isFile() || !f.canRead())))
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Input text file missing or unreadable: " + textFilePath);

try {
    parser.test(argsToProps, "-textFile", path);
} catch (RuntimeIOException e) {
    // check cause: input file open failure
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running the parser test path with props 'testFile'/'textFile' pointing to a nonexistent path, a directory, or a file the process cannot read; also any IO error while opening stdin when inputFilename is "-".

Common situations: Typos in the -textFile path, running from a different working directory than expected, missing read permissions, or forgeting to specify -textFile at all so the default "-"/empty path fails.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

• Couldn't read function word file
• Error opening output file
• TokensRegexNERAnnotator
• Couldn't read TokensRegexNER from
• java.io.IOException

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b3789a064d267ab6. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/parser/nndep/DependencyParser.java:1320

      parser.testCoNLL(props.getProperty("testFile"), props.getProperty("outFile"));
    }

    // Parse raw text data
    if (props.containsKey("textFile")) {
      if (!loaded) {
        parser.loadModelFile(props.getProperty("model"));
        loaded = true;
      }

      String encoding = parser.config.tlp.getEncoding();
      String inputFilename = props.getProperty("textFile");
      BufferedReader input;
      try {
        input = inputFilename.equals("-")
                ? IOUtils.readerFromStdin(encoding)
                : IOUtils.readerFromString(inputFilename, encoding);
      } catch (IOException e) {
        throw new RuntimeIOException("No input file provided (use -textFile)", e);
      }

      String outputFilename = props.getProperty("outFile");
      PrintWriter output;
      try {
        output = outputFilename == null || outputFilename.equals("-")
            ? IOUtils.encodedOutputStreamPrintWriter(System.out, encoding, true)
            : IOUtils.getPrintWriter(outputFilename, encoding);
      } catch (IOException e) {
        throw new RuntimeIOException("Error opening output file", e);
      }

      parser.parseTextFile(input, output);
    }
  }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b7edd19c4)