Tidy Viewer (tv)

Tidy Viewer (tv) is a cross-platform csv pretty printer that uses column styling to maximize viewer enjoyment.

Pretty Printing

Installation

The following install options are available

Cargo Install from crates.io
Debian .deb install
AUR
MacOS
ARM
Windows
Build from source
Snap
Homebrew

1. Cargo Install

The following will install from the crates.io source. For convenience add the alas alias tv='tidy-viewer' to bashrc.

cargo install tidy-viewer
sudo cp /home/$USER/.cargo/bin/tidy-viewer /usr/local/bin/.
echo "alias tv='tidy-viewer'" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

2. Debian

The below instructions work with the most recent release <VERSION> found here release page.

wget https://github.com/alexhallam/tv/releases/download/<VERSION>/tidy-viewer_<VERSION>_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i tidy-viewer_<VERSION>_amd64.deb
echo "alias tv='tidy-viewer'" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

3. AUR

Kindly maintained by @yigitsever

paru -S tidy-viewer

4-7. Other releases

We currently cut releases for the following architectures. Download from the release page.

MacOS
ARM
Windows
Build from source (Most general)

The instuctions for all of the above are very similar with the following general steps.

Download your desired release from the release page
tar -xvzf <RELEASE_FILE_NAME>
cd into uncompressed folder
Find binary tidy-viewer

After the above steps I would highly reccomend you make an alias for tidy-viewer as shown for other builds.

8. Snap

sudo snap install --edge tidy-viewer
tidy-viewer --help

9. Homebrew

brew tap alexhallam/tidy-viewer
brew install tidy-viewer

Examples

Have some fun with the following datasets!

Diamonds

# Download the diamonds data
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/master/data-raw/diamonds.csv

# pipe to tv
cat diamonds.csv | tv

Starwars

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tidyverse/dplyr/master/data-raw/starwars.csv

# Pass as agrument
tv starwars.csv

Pigeon Racing

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joanby/python-ml-course/master/datasets/pigeon-race/pigeon-racing.csv
cat pigeon-racing.csv | tv

Titanic

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/datasciencedojo/datasets/master/titanic.csv
tv titanic.csv

Significant Figure Definitions & Rules

The first three digits represent > 99.9% the value of a number. -- GNU-R Pillar

tv uses the same significant figure (sigfig) rules that the R package pillar uses.

The purpose of the sigfig rules in tv is to guide the eye to the most important information in a number. This section defines terms and the decision tree used in the calculation of the final value displayed.

Definitions

     ┌─────┐      ┌─────┐     ─┐
     │     │      │     │      │
     │     │      │     │      │
     │     │      │     │      │
     │     │      │     │      │
     │     │  ┌┐  │     │      │
     └─────┘  └┘  └─────┘    ──┴─
   │        │    │                │
   └────────┘  ▲ └────────────────┘
left hand side │  right hand side
     (lhs)     │       (rhs)

            decimal

left hand side (lhs): digits on the left hand side of the decimal.

right hand side (rhs): digits on the right hand side of the decimal.


 ┌─────┐      ┌─────┐     ─┐     ┌─────┐
 │     │      │     │      │     │     │
 │     │      │     │      │     │     │
 │     │      │     │      │     │     │
 │     │      │     │      │     │     │
 │     │  ┌┐  │     │      │     │     │
 └─────┘  └┘  └─────┘    ──┴─    └─────┘

│                     │         │       │
└─────────────────────┘         └───────┘
       leading 0s              trailing 0s

leading 0s: 0s to the left of a non-zero.

trailing 0s: 0s to the right of a non-zero. The zeros in 500m are trailing as well as the 0s in 0.500km.

 ─┐     ┌─────┐       ─┐
  │     │     │        │
  │     │     │        │
  │     │     │        │
  │     │     │        │
  │     │     │  ┌┐    │
──┴─    └─────┘  └┘  ──┴─

                   │        │
                   └────────┘
              fractional digit(s)

fractional digits: Digits on the rhs of the decimal. The represent the non-integer part of a number.

Rules

There are only 4 outputs possible. The significant figures to display are set by the user. Assume sigfig = 3:

lhs only (12345.0 -> 12345): If no fractional digits are present and lhs >= sigfig then return lhs
lhs + point (1234.5 -> 1234.): If fractional digits are present and lhs >= sigfig then return lhs with point. This is to let the user know that some decimal dust is beyond the main mass of the number.
lhs + point + rhs (1.2345 -> 1.23): If fractional digits are present and lhs < sigfig return the first three digits of the number.
long rhs (0.00001 -> 0.00001): This is reserved for values with leading 0s in the rhs.

# Psuedo Code: Sigfig logic assuming sigfig = 3
if lhs == 0:
    n = ((floor(log10(abs(x))) + 1 - sigfig)
    r =(10^n) * round(x / (10^n))
    return r
    // (0.12345 -> 0.123)
else:
    if log10(lhs) + 1 > sigfig:
        if rhs > 0:
            //concatenate:
            //(lhs)
            //(point)
            //(123.45 -> 123.)
        else:
            //concatenate:
            //(lhs)
            //(1234.0 -> 1234)
            //(100.0 -> 100)
    else:
        //concatenate:
        //(lhs)
        //(point)
        //sigfig - log10(lhs) from rhs
        //(12.345 -> 12.3)
        //(1.2345 -> 1.23)

Tools to pair with tv

tv is a good compliment to command line data manipulation tools. I have listed some tools that I like to use with tv.

xsv - Command line csv data manipulation. [Rust | CLI]

csvtk - Command line csv data manipulation. [Go | CLI]

tsv-utils - Command line csv data manipulation toolkit. [D | CLI]

q - Command line csv data manipulation query-like. [Python | CLI]

miller - Command line data manipulation, statistics, and more. [C | CLI]

VisiData - An interactive terminal user interface that is built to explore and wrangle data. [Python | TUI]

Tools similar to tv

column Comes standard with linux. To get similar functionality run column file.csv -ts,

Though column is similar I do think there are some reasons tv is a better tool.

1. NA comprehension

NA values are very important! Viewers should have their attention drawn to these empty cells. In the image below NA values are not only invisible, but it seems to be causing incorrect alignment in other columns.

There are many ways that programs will designate missing values. Some use none, others use NaN, and many more "", NA, null, n/a etc. tv searches for these strings and replaces them with NA. This is similar in spirit to the significant digit calculations and the truncation of columns with long strings. The purpose of tv is not to show the complete literal value, but to guide the eye.

2. Column Overflow Logic

In cases where the terminal width can't fit all of the columns in a dataframe, column will try to smush data on the rows below. This results in an unpleasant viewing experience.

tv can automatically tell when there will be too many columns to print. When this occurs it will only print the columns that fit in the terminal and mention the extras in the footer below the table.

Help

tv --help

tv 0.0.20
Tidy Viewer (tv) is a csv pretty printer that uses column styling to maximize viewer enjoyment.✨✨📺✨✨

    Example Usage:
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/master/data-raw/diamonds.csv
    cat diamonds.csv | head -n 35 | tv

USAGE:
    tv [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [FILE]

FLAGS:
    -d, --debug-mode    Print object details to make it easier for the maintainer to find and resolve bugs.
    -h, --help          Prints help information
    -V, --version       Prints version information

OPTIONS:
    -c, --color <color>
            There are 4 colors (1)nord, (2)one_dark, (3)gruvbox, and (4)dracula. An input of (0)bw will remove color
            properties. Note that colors will make it difficult to pipe output to other utilities [default: 1]
    -s, --delimiter <delimiter>                      The delimiter separating the columns. [default: ,]
    -f, --footer <footer>                            Add a title to your tv. Example 'footer info' [default: NA]
    -l, --lower-column-width <lower-column-width>
            The lower (minimum) width of columns. Must be 2 or larger. [default: 2]

    -n, --number of rows to output <row-display>     Show how many rows to display. [default: 25]
    -t, --title <title>                              Add a title to your tv. Example 'Test Data' [default: NA]
    -u, --upper-column-width <upper-column-width>    The upper (maxiumum) width of columns. [default: 20]

ARGS:
    <FILE>    File to process

Inspiration

pillar - R's tibble like formatting. Fantastic original work by Kirill Müller and Hadley Wickham. tv makes an attempt to port their ideas to the terminal.

rlewicki / tv