diff --git a/tools/java-event-log-tags.py b/tools/java-event-log-tags.py
index f364751c4..37cd71220 100755
--- a/tools/java-event-log-tags.py
+++ b/tools/java-event-log-tags.py
@@ -51,30 +51,37 @@ for o, a in opts:
     print >> sys.stderr, "unhandled option %s" % (o,)
     sys.exit(1)
 
-if len(args) != 2:
-  print "need exactly two input files, not %d" % (len(args),)
+if len(args) != 1 and len(args) != 2:
+  print "need one or two input files, not %d" % (len(args),)
   print __doc__
   sys.exit(1)
 
 fn = args[0]
 tagfile = event_log_tags.TagFile(fn)
 
-# Load the merged tag file (which should have numbers assigned for all
-# tags.  Use the numbers from the merged file to fill in any missing
-# numbers from the input file.
-merged_fn = args[1]
-merged_tagfile = event_log_tags.TagFile(merged_fn)
-merged_by_name = dict([(t.tagname, t) for t in merged_tagfile.tags])
-for t in tagfile.tags:
-  if t.tagnum is None:
-    if t.tagname in merged_by_name:
-      t.tagnum = merged_by_name[t.tagname].tagnum
-    else:
-      # We're building something that's not being included in the
-      # product, so its tags don't appear in the merged file.  Assign
-      # them all an arbitrary number so we can emit the java and
-      # compile the (unused) package.
-      t.tagnum = 999999
+if len(args) > 1:
+  # Load the merged tag file (which should have numbers assigned for all
+  # tags.  Use the numbers from the merged file to fill in any missing
+  # numbers from the input file.
+  merged_fn = args[1]
+  merged_tagfile = event_log_tags.TagFile(merged_fn)
+  merged_by_name = dict([(t.tagname, t) for t in merged_tagfile.tags])
+  for t in tagfile.tags:
+    if t.tagnum is None:
+      if t.tagname in merged_by_name:
+        t.tagnum = merged_by_name[t.tagname].tagnum
+      else:
+        # We're building something that's not being included in the
+        # product, so its tags don't appear in the merged file.  Assign
+        # them all an arbitrary number so we can emit the java and
+        # compile the (unused) package.
+        t.tagnum = 999999
+else:
+  # Not using the merged tag file, so all tags must have manually assigned
+  # numbers
+  for t in tagfile.tags:
+    if t.tagnum is None:
+      tagfilef.AddError("tag \"%s\" has no number" % (tagname,), tag.linenum)
 
 if "java_package" not in tagfile.options:
   tagfile.AddError("java_package option not specified", linenum=0)