Named Entity Recognition 26.3
Named Entity Recognition User and Programming Guide

# Extract

This command extracts entities from a document. It can print the output to a file, or to the console. You can use this option to test your grammars.

The following table describes the available parameters for this command.

`-l <licensefile>` | The Named Entity Recognition license to use. You can provide either: A path to the file that contains the license key. This file can include the version key, concatenated to the license key with a semicolon (`;`), or you can copy the `versionkey.dat` to the same directory as the license key file. See Named Entity Recognition Licenses in edktool. The license data. This license data must include the license key and the version key, separated by a semicolon (`;`). If you do not specify a license key, edktool attempts to load the license `licensekey.dat` and `versionkey.dat` in its current working directory. You must specify the license parameter if your license is in a different location.
`-i <inputfile>` | The file to perform entity extraction on. The input file must be a UTF-8 encoded plain text file.
`-c <configfile>` | A configuration file controlling the extraction. See EdkTool Configuration File. You can specify one or more grammar files and one or more entities in place of a configuration file. Specifying a configuration file overrides the grammar or entity parameters.
`-g <grammarfile>` | A grammar file to use. Edktool ignores this option if you set a configuration file with `-c`. If you provide a grammar file but do not specify any entities with `-e`, Named Entity Recognition extracts all entities in the grammar file. You can use wildcard expressions in this parameter. See Wildcard Expressions in edktool.
`-e <entity>` | The entities to extract. Separate multiple entities with a comma. Edktool ignores this option if you set a configuration file with `-c`. You can use wildcard expressions in this parameter. See Wildcard Expressions in edktool.
`-o <outputfile>` | The file to write the results of the extraction to. The output file is an XML file that contains the matched entities.
`-q` | (Optional) Run in quiet mode. In this case, `edktool` removes all descriptive messages from the output and shows the XML matchlist only (that is, an XML document with all the matches and any configured metadata).
`-r <redaction_file>` | (Optional) The name of a copy of the input file to produce, with all matches redacted. For example:
    The driver ########## was questioned.
See Redact Extraction Results.
`-b` | Read the input file in binary mode, rather than text mode. If you create a grammar file that matches entities with only Windows (CR LF) line endings and you run edktool on Windows, edktool must read the input file in binary mode for it to find any matches. OpenText recommends that you create grammar files capable of handling both Windows and Unix line endings.

The extract option requires an input file (in plain text format) and either a configuration file or a grammar file. If you do not provide a configuration file, `edktool` searches the file for any specified entities in the specified grammar (or all entities, if none are specified). For example, in the simplest command line:

    C:\>edktool e -i myData.txt -g grammar1.ecr,grammar2.ecr

This command runs edktool without a configuration file. It processes the data file `myData.txt` with the grammar files `grammar1.ecr` and `grammar2.ecr`. Named Entity Recognition identifies all the entities in the two grammar files, and matches on these. The output is sent to the console in XML format, identifying matches in the data file and using the entity names to generate field names for the matches that contain the matched data. It matches the entire body of the plain text input file.

## Redact Extraction Results

You can enable redaction on extracted matches in edktool either by setting `RedactedOutput` to `True` in the edktool configuration file, or by specifying a redaction file using the `-r` parameter at the command line.

The entities identified as matches by `edktool` are redacted from the input text to form the redacted output. For example:

Input:

`The driver Joe Bloggs was questioned.`

Output:

`The driver ########## was questioned.`

Named Entity Recognition sends redacted output to the file specified in the `-r` parameter. If you do not specify this argument but you have enabled redaction in the configuration file, Named Entity Recognition displays redacted output in the console after the list of matches, unless you have set the `-q` parameter at the command line to enable quiet mode. In quiet mode, edktool does not display redacted output in the console.

## Examples

    edktool e -i myPlainTextFile.txt -g myGrammar.ecr

Extracts all entities in `myGrammar.ecr` from `myPlainTextFile.txt`, sending the output to the console in XML format, with the field names for the matching text automatically generated from the entity names found in `myGrammar.ecr`.

Copyright 2013-2026 Open Text
Version 26.3 | Last updated July 2026

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Named Entity Recognition 26.3

Topic Title: Extract