EmptyDataError: No columns to parse from file

pandas.errors.EmptyDataError: No columns to parse from file

$ python -c "import pandas as pd; from io import StringIO; s=''; pd.read_csv(StringIO(s))"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
pandas.errors.EmptyDataError: No columns to parse from file

Why this happens

Pandas raises EmptyDataError when a file has no data at all (empty), or only contains whitespace and no column/row data. This often happens with bad downloads, empty log files, or incorrect globbing that selects an empty file.

Fix

Verify the source file or use a try/except to handle empty files gracefully. If the file can be empty by design, skip or create an empty DataFrame instead.

Wrong code

import pandas as pd
from io import StringIO

s = ''
# Raises EmptyDataError when file has no content
pd.read_csv(StringIO(s))

Fixed code

import pandas as pd
from io import StringIO

s = ''
try:
    df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(s))
except pd.errors.EmptyDataError:
    df = pd.DataFrame()  # handle gracefully

print(df)