CSVLOOK(1)                          csvkit                          CSVLOOK(1)

NAME
       csvlook - csvlook Documentation

DESCRIPTION
       Renders a CSV to the command line in a Markdown-compatible, fixed-width
       format:

          usage: csvlook [-h] [-d DELIMITER] [-t] [-q QUOTECHAR] [-u {0,1,2,3}] [-b]
                         [-p ESCAPECHAR] [-z FIELD_SIZE_LIMIT] [-e ENCODING] [-L LOCALE]
                         [-S] [--blanks] [--null-value NULL_VALUES [NULL_VALUES ...]]
                         [--date-format DATE_FORMAT] [--datetime-format DATETIME_FORMAT]
                         [-H] [-K SKIP_LINES] [-v] [-l] [--zero] [-V]
                         [--max-rows MAX_ROWS] [--max-columns MAX_COLUMNS]
                         [--max-column-width MAX_COLUMN_WIDTH]
                         [--max-precision MAX_PRECISION] [--no-number-ellipsis]
                         [-y SNIFF_LIMIT] [-I]
                         [FILE]

          Render a CSV file in the console as a Markdown-compatible, fixed-width table.

          positional arguments:
            FILE                  The CSV file to operate on. If omitted, will accept
                                  input as piped data via STDIN.

          optional arguments:
            -h, --help            show this help message and exit
            --max-rows MAX_ROWS   The maximum number of rows to display before
                                  truncating the data.
            --max-columns MAX_COLUMNS
                                  The maximum number of columns to display before
                                  truncating the data.
            --max-column-width MAX_COLUMN_WIDTH
                                  Truncate all columns to at most this width. The
                                  remainder will be replaced with ellipsis.
            --max-precision MAX_PRECISION
                                  The maximum number of decimal places to display. The
                                  remainder will be replaced with ellipsis.
            --no-number-ellipsis  Disable the ellipsis if --max-precision is exceeded.
            -y SNIFF_LIMIT, --snifflimit SNIFF_LIMIT
                                  Limit CSV dialect sniffing to the specified number of
                                  bytes. Specify "0" to disable sniffing entirely, or
                                  "-1" to sniff the entire file.
            -I, --no-inference    Disable type inference when parsing the input. This
                                  disables the reformatting of values.

       If a table is too wide to display properly try piping the output to
       less -S or truncating it using csvcut.

       If the table is too long, try filtering it down with grep or piping the
       output to less.

       See also: Arguments common to all tools.

       NOTE:
          The fractional part of a decimal numberal is always truncated. To
          control this truncation, use --no-inference along with
          --max-column-width.

EXAMPLES
       Basic use:

          csvlook examples/testfixed_converted.csv

       This tool is especially useful as a final operation when piping through
       other tools:

          csvcut -c 9,1 examples/realdata/FY09_EDU_Recipients_by_State.csv | csvlook

       If a data row contains more cells than the header row, csvlook will
       error. Use csvclean to remove such rows.

       To ignore the extra cells, instead:

          csvcut -C "" examples/bad.csv | csvlook

       If these rows are at the top of the file (for example, copyright
       notices), you can skip the rows:

          csvlook --skip-lines 1 examples/bad.csv

       This error can also occur if csvlook incorrectly deduces ("sniffs") the
       CSV format. To disable CSV sniffing, set --snifflimit 0 and then, if
       necessary, set the --delimiter and --quotechar options yourself. Or,
       set --snifflimit -1 to use the entire file as the sample, instead of
       the first 1024 bytes.

AUTHOR
       Christopher Groskopf and contributors

COPYRIGHT
       2016, Christopher Groskopf and James McKinney

2.0.1                            July 12, 2024                      CSVLOOK(1)