csvlens Yung Siang Liau

csvlens

csvlens is a command line CSV file viewer. It is like less but made for CSV.

Usage

Run csvlens by providing the CSV filename:

csvlens 

Pipe CSV data directly to csvlens:

 | csvlens

Key bindings

Key	Action
hjkl (or ← ↓ ↑→ )	Scroll one row or column in the given direction
Ctrl + f (or Page Down)	Scroll one window down
Ctrl + b (or Page Up)	Scroll one window up
Ctrl + d (or d)	Scroll half a window down
Ctrl + u (or u)	Scroll half a window up
Ctrl + h	Scroll one window left
Ctrl + l	Scroll one window right
Ctrl + ←	Scroll left to first column
Ctrl + →	Scroll right to last column
G (or End)	Go to bottom
g (or Home)	Go to top
G	Go to line n
/	Find content matching regex and highlight matches
n (in Find mode)	Jump to next result
N (in Find mode)	Jump to previous result
&	Filter rows using regex (show only matches)
*	Filter columns using regex (show only matches)
TAB	Toggle between row, column or cell selection modes
>	Increase selected column's width
<	Decrease selected column's width
Shift + ↓ (or Shift + j)	Sort rows or toggle sort direction by the selected column
# (in Cell mode)	Find and highlight rows like the selected cell
@ (in Cell mode)	Filter rows like the selected cell
y	Copy the selected row or cell to clipboard
Enter (in Cell mode)	Print the selected cell to stdout and exit
-S	Toggle line wrapping
-W	Toggle line wrapping by words
f	Freeze this number of columns from the left
r	Reset to default view (clear all filters and custom column widths)
H (or ?)	Display help
q	Exit

Optional parameters

• -d : Use this delimiter when parsing the CSV (e.g. csvlens file.csv -d '\t').

  Specify -d auto to auto-detect the delimiter.

• -t, --tab-separated: Use tab as the delimiter (when specified, -d is ignored).

• -i, --ignore-case: Ignore case when searching. This flag is ignored if any uppercase letters are present in the search string.

• --no-headers: Do not interpret the first row as headers.

• --columns : Use this regex to select columns to display by default.

  Example: "column1|column2" matches "column1", "column2", and also column names like "column11", "column22".

• --filter : Use this regex to filter rows to display by default.

  The regex is matched against each cell in every column.

  Example: "value1|value2" filters rows with any cells containing "value1", "value2", or text like "my_value1" or "value234".

• --find : Use this regex to find and highlight matches by default.

  The regex is matched against each cell in every column.

  Example: "value1|value2" highlights text in any cells containing "value1", "value2", or longer text like "value1_ok".

• --echo-column : Print the value of this column at the selected row to stdout on Enter key and then exit.

• --prompt : Show a custom prompt message in the status bar. Supports ANSI escape codes for colored or styled text.

  Example:

  csvlens Pokemon.csv --prompt $'\e[1m\e[32mSelect a Pokémon!\e[0m'
  

• --color-columns (or --colorful): Display each column in a different color.

Installation

Direct download

You can download the tar.xz or zip file matching your operating system from the releases page, extract it and execute the csvlens binary.

Homebrew

For macOS, csvlens is available on Homebrew. You can install it using:

brew install csvlens

Arch Linux

csvlens is available in the official repositories. You can install it using:

pacman -S csvlens

Windows

For Windows, csvlens is available on winget. You can install it using:

winget install --id YS-L.csvlens

FreeBSD

csvlens is available as a FreeBSD pkg. You can install it using:

pkg install csvlens

NetBSD

csvlens is available on pkgsrc. If you're using NetBSD you can install it using:

pkgin install csvlens

OpenBSD

csvlens is available as an OpenBSD port. If you're using OpenBSD 7.6-current or later, you can install it using:

doas pkg_add csvlens

Cargo

If you have Rust installed, csvlens is available on crates.io and you can install it using:

cargo install csvlens

Or, build and install from source after cloning this repo:

cargo install --path $(pwd)

Library Usage

This crate allows you to use csvlens as a library.

In your Cargo.toml, add the following:

[dependencies]
csvlens = { version = "0.12.0", default-features = false, features = ["clipboard"] }

Example

Here's a simple example of how to use csvlens as a library (Documentation):

use csvlens::run_csvlens;

let out = run_csvlens(&["/path/to/your.csv"]).unwrap();
if let Some(selected_cell) = out {
    println!("Selected: {}", selected_cell);
}

For more advanced usage, you can use CsvlensOptions to customize the behavior:

use csvlens::{run_csvlens_with_options, CsvlensOptions};

let options = CsvlensOptions {
    filename: "/path/to/your.csv".to_string(),
    delimiter: Some("|".to_string()),
    ignore_case: true,
    debug: true,
    ..Default::default()
};
let out = run_csvlens_with_options(options).unwrap();
if let Some(selected_cell) = out {
    println!("Selected: {}", selected_cell);
}

See how qsv uses csvlens as a library here.