Viewing .csv files on the command line

bilalshussain@gmail.com (Bilal Syed Hussain) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 16:46:31 +0000

It can be convenient to view a .csv file from the command line, when using SSH connection for example. A basic version with no dependencies is as follows:

function see_csv(){
    column -s, -t <"$1" | less --shift 2  -SN
}

with example output:

1 seq    run_no  kind        iterations  timeout
2 12001  1       undirected  64          600
3 12002  1       nsample     64          600

To handle blank fields we can use sed to add extra spaces for use with column:

function see_csv(){
    cat "$1" | sed 's/,,/, ,/g;s/,,/, ,/g' | column -s, -t | less --shift 2 -SN
}

If the .csv has many columns, you change the less options to the following:

function see_csv(){
    cat "$1" | sed 's/,,/, ,/g;s/,,/, ,/g' | column -s, -t | less -SN -Xs
}

So that the columns that can fit on the screen are printed, for convenience.

❯ see_csv experiment.csv
      1 seq    run_no  kind        iterations param timeout  
      2 16001  1       undirected  64               38400            
      3 16002  1       nsample     64               38400            
      4 16003  1       undirected  64               38400            

~/Desktop/Results/
❯

~/Desktop/Results/
❯

To access any addition columns use the arrow keys, this will cause the screen to be redrawn.

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Viewing .csv files on the command line