vcat

Overview

vcat is a command-line (CLI) tool that generates human-friendly visualizations from any file’s contents.

CleanShot.2025-01-11.at.21.04.35.mp4

Key Features

• Automatic Visualization: Provide a file, and vcat writes a custom Python script on the fly to produce an HTML-based visualization.
• Supports Any File Size: vcat works for visualizing files of any size.
• Large File Handling: For files exceeding a configurable threshold, vcat can break down the content into chunks so the final visualization is still efficient and doesn't kill your browser.
• Simple CLI: An intuitive command-line interface (vcat path/to/file.txt) that does all the heavy lifting for you.
• Custom Styling: Cool custom styles 😎 (maybe).

Installation

1. Prerequisites:
   • Python 3.7+
   • An OpenAI API key (OPENAI_API_KEY must be set as an environment variable)
2. Install with pip:

   pip install vcat

Usage

# Create the environment variable
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-****************

# Basic usage
vcat path/to/data.csv

# Reading only 100 lines
vcat path/to/data.csv --lines 100

# Reading only 5000 characters
vcat path/to/data.csv --chars 5000

• After running, vcat will create and open an HTML file that visualizes your data.

Environment Variables

• OPENAI_API_KEY: Must be set to a valid OpenAI API key.
• VERBOSE (optional): Set to any value to see more detailed logs.