Tabiew is a terminal-based tool for exploring, querying, and manipulating tabular data. It supports multiple file formats and provides viewing, filtering, SQL queries, type casting, and basic plotting for quick analysis. This Wiki guides you through Tabiew’s core features and workflows so you can integrate the tool into your data workflow.

The following CSV files are used throughout the Wiki:

1. housing.csv: The housing price dataset.
2. user.csv: A set of users with their properties generated by a Language Learning Model (LLM).
3. company.csv: A set of companies with their properties generated by an LLM.
4. employment.csv: A relation table between user and company, indicating when a user got employed by a company.

It is recommended that you take the time to look at each CSV file to grasp its structure and content.

To open a single file in Tabiew, simply use the following command:

tw <file_name>

Needless to say, that <file_name> should be replaced with the name of the file you wish to open. For instance, to open the housing price dataset file, use the following command:

tw housing.csv

This command will load the housing.csv file and display the following page:

As shown in the image, the tabular data is displayed in the main table, while the status bar at the bottom provides table properties such as name and shape.

In addition to CSV, Tabiew also supports various other formats, including Parquet, JSON, JSON-Line, Arrow, FWF, SQLite, and Logfmt. For instance, to open a parquet file named sample.parquet, use the following command:

tw sample.parquet -f parquet

If no format is specified in the argument, Tabiew attempts to infer it based on the file extension.

Command palette is activated by pressing :. While in the command palette, you can type to search and filter available commands, navigate the filtered results with Arrow Up / Arrow Down or Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p, then press Enter to execute the selected command or Esc to return to the table.

Use these key mappings to navigate through and better visualize your data:

If you want to jump, you can jump to specific rows by typing the row number.

The sheet view allows a more detailed view of each row. You can open it by pressing the enter key. In sheet view, you can inspect the row's full contents.

When in sheet view, you can scroll up and down in the sheet using Shift+k or Shift+Arrow Up and Shift+j or Shift+Arrow Down.

Press q or escape to close the sheet view.

If you enter multiple file names after the tw command, all files will open in different tabs. For instance, running the command

tw housing.csv user.csv

opens housing.csv and user.csv in separate tabs, allowing you to switch between them and view or compare the contents.

Alternatively, you can use a wildcard to open all CSV files in the directory:

tw *.csv

You can use H (Shift+h) to move to the previous tab and L (Shift+l) to move to the next tab. Alternatively, t opens the side panel to select from all open tabs.

Tabiew allows you to query your data using SQL for powerful data manipulation and analysis. Query pop-up opens by running the Query command.

After the pop-up opens, type your SQL query into the input area and press enter to execute it. The result data frame will open in a new tab.

The Schema command displays all loaded tables in the SQL backend.

Table names are chosen based on their file names without the extension. For instance, the table name for housing.csv is housing. If multiple files have the same name, subsequent files will have _2, _3, and so on appended to their names.

To view the schema and meta information of a single data frame, press i while the data frame is focused. This displays detailed information about the columns, types, and other metadata for the data frame.

To register the current data frame in the backend for later use, use the Register command.

Inline queries provide a convenient way to manipulate the current data frame. These queries are shorter versions of standard SQL executed on the displayed data frame. If you want to go back to the previous data frame (before running the query), press q.

The Import command shows the importer pop-up which assists you though the process of importing a file into the SQL Backend.

The Export command shows the exporter pop-up which assists you though the process of exporting the current data frame.

You can perform fast exact or fuzzy searches across all columns while in table view by pressing ?, for exact, or /, for fuzzy search, to enter the search. Typing in search filters the data frame. Press enter to apply the filter or rollback by pressing esc. After applying the filter, you may go back to the previous-to-search data frame by pressing q.

Tabiew allows you to cast the type of a column using the Cast command, which opens a pop-up to assist you in the casting process. After a successful cast, you may press q to go back to the previous-to-cast data frame.

Tabiew can generate simple data visualizations from the current data frame.

Use the ScatterPlot command opens up a pop-up to assist you in building the scatter plot.

At first, you need to choose the X axis.

Then, the Y axis.

Additionally, you can choose the plot to be colored by a third column.

After these three steps, the scatter plot will be visualized:

Use the Histogram command to open the histogram builder pop-up.

At first, you need to choose the column.

And then, the number of buckets.

To visualize the histogram.

Tabiew comes with more than 400 themes (inspired by the ghostty terminal). Use the ThemeSelector command to open the theme selector, where you can browse and preview themes live.

Press Enter to commit the highlighted theme or Esc to rollback to the previous theme.