stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · RuntimeException

no sieve type specified

Error message

no sieve type specified

What it means

Sieve.loadSieve switches on the sieve type parsed from the sieves property string. The switch's default branch throws RuntimeException("no sieve type specified") when the name does not match any known sieve type enum, meaning the configured sieve name is unrecognized or empty.

Solutions

  1. Check the sieves property against the valid SieveType enum values in the current CoreNLP version
  2. Fix typos/case in the sieve names, e.g. use "exact"/"strict"/"head" style names as documented
  3. Remove unknown sieve names from the comma-separated list and rerun
  4. If the name existed in an older version, consult the changelog for renamed sieves

Example fix

// before
props.setProperty("coref.sieves", "exact, exat, pronoun"); // typo
// after
props.setProperty("coref.sieves", "exact, strict, pronoun");
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

Set<String> valid = Set.of("exact","strict","head","pronoun","discordant","speaker","documentproxy"); // match current SieveType enum
for (String s : props.getProperty("coref.sieves","").split(",")) { String n = s.trim(); if (!n.isEmpty() && !valid.contains(n.toLowerCase())) throw new IllegalStateException("Unknown sieve: " + n); }

Try / catch

try { sieves = Sieve.loadSieves(props); } catch (RuntimeException e) { if (e.getMessage().contains("no sieve type specified")) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("Bad coref.sieves value: " + props.getProperty("coref.sieves"), e); } throw e; }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Setting the hybrid coref sieves property (e.g. coref.md.sieves or sieves list) to a sieve name that maps to no known SieveType — misspelled names like "exat" instead of "exact", an empty string, or a sieve name removed in a newer/older CoreNLP version.

Common situations: Copying sieve strings from old tutorials/blogs into a new CoreNLP version where sieve names changed; typos or wrong case in the sieves list; leaving the property empty so the parsed type is blank.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/92fbbd0932bf4c94. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/coref/hybrid/sieve/Sieve.java:130

        DeterministicCorefSieve sieve = (DeterministicCorefSieve) Class.forName("edu.stanford.nlp.coref.hybrid.sieve."+sievename).getConstructor().newInstance();
        sieve.props = props;
        sieve.lang = HybridCorefProperties.getLanguage(props);
        return sieve;

      case RF:
        log.info("Loading sieve: " + sievename + " from " + HybridCorefProperties.getPathModel(props, sievename) + " ... ");
        RFSieve rfsieve = IOUtils.readObjectFromURLOrClasspathOrFileSystem(HybridCorefProperties.getPathModel(props, sievename));
        rfsieve.thresMerge = HybridCorefProperties.getMergeThreshold(props, sievename);
        log.info("done. Merging threshold: " + rfsieve.thresMerge);
        return rfsieve;

      case ORACLE:
        OracleSieve oracleSieve = new OracleSieve(props, sievename);
        oracleSieve.props = props;
        return oracleSieve;

      default:
        throw new RuntimeException("no sieve type specified");
    }
  }


  public static List<Sieve> loadSieves(Properties props) throws Exception {
    List<Sieve> sieves = new ArrayList<>();
    String sieveProp = HybridCorefProperties.getSieves(props);
    String currentSieveForTrain = HybridCorefProperties.getCurrentSieveForTrain(props);
    String[] sievenames = (currentSieveForTrain==null)?
        sieveProp.trim().split(",\\s*") : sieveProp.split(currentSieveForTrain)[0].trim().split(",\\s*");
    for(String sievename : sievenames) {
      Sieve sieve = loadSieve(props, sievename);
      sieves.add(sieve);
    }
    return sieves;
  }

  public static boolean hasThat(List<CoreLabel> words) {

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