LangChain TextLoader

LangChain TextLoader is a base DocumentLoader subclass that reads plain-text files into the LangChain framework. You create it with a file path — loader = TextLoader”notes.txt” — and call .load to return a list of Document objects, each containing the file’s contents and default metadata (source path, line count). Unlike PDF or HTML loaders, TextLoader doesn’t perform any parsing beyond UTF-8 decoding, making it ideal for logs, markup, or code snippets where the structure is already clear. The output feeds directly into subsequent stages: chunking, embedding, and storing in a vector database like Chroma or Elasticsearch. Error handling covers missing files and encoding mismatches, while optional kwargs let you override metadata keys. Because TextLoader implements a standard loader interface, it can be replaced with more powerful loaders (CSV, WebBase) with just one line, allowing teams to quickly prototype Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines before adding complex sources.