tuitab

A fast, keyboard-driven terminal explorer for tabular data. Open CSV, JSON, Parquet, Excel and SQLite files directly in your terminal — filter, sort, pivot, compute new columns, and visualise distributions without leaving the shell.

tuitab data.csv
tuitab orders.csv customers.csv   # open multiple files as a browseable list
ttab   data.csv                   # short alias
ttb    data.csv                   # shortest alias
cat data.csv | tuitab -t csv

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Features

• Multi-format input — CSV/TSV (auto-delimiter), JSON, Parquet, Excel (xlsx/xls), SQLite, DuckDB
• Keyboard-driven navigation — vim-style hjkl, g/G jump, column-width resize
• Filtering — regex search /, row selection by value ,, expression filter |!=expr
• Sorting — ascending/descending on any column, multi-key sort
• Computed columns — =expr syntax with arithmetic, string ops, date math
• JOIN — J opens a step-by-step wizard to join the current table with another file or open sheet (INNER / LEFT / RIGHT / FULL OUTER, multi-column keys)
• Pivot tables — W opens a pivot formula input with autocomplete
• Statistics — I shows per-column stats (type, count, nulls, unique, min, max, mean, median, mode, stdev, quantiles)
• Charts — V renders histogram, frequency bar chart, line chart (date × numeric), and grouped bar chart (category × numeric). Pin a reference column with ! first for 2-column charts
• Transpose — T transposes the current table in-place
• Export — Ctrl+S saves as CSV/Parquet/Excel
• Clipboard — yank rows to clipboard, paste
• Aggregators — column footers with sum, count, avg, median, percentiles
• Theme — Everforest dark colour palette

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Installation

Cargo (crates.io)

cargo install tuitab

This installs three aliases: tuitab, ttab, and tt.

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap denisotree/tuitab
brew install tuitab

apt (Debian / Ubuntu)

# Download the .deb from the latest GitHub release, then:
sudo dpkg -i tuitab_0.1.0_amd64.deb

Or add the apt repository (see releases page).

Arch Linux (AUR)

# Using yay:
yay -S tuitab

# Or build manually:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/tuitab.git
cd tuitab && makepkg -si

Pre-built binaries

Download for your platform from the Releases page.

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Usage

tuitab [OPTIONS] [FILES]...

Arguments:
  [FILES]...  One or more files to open, a directory, or '-' for stdin.
              Pass multiple files to browse them as a list.

Options:
  -d, --delimiter <CHAR>   Column delimiter (auto-detected if omitted)
  -t, --type <FORMAT>      Data format when reading from stdin (csv, json, parquet)
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

Open multiple files at once

tuitab orders.csv customers.csv products.csv

A directory-style listing opens with all three files as rows. Press Enter on any row to open that file. Press Esc or q to return to the list.

Pipe mode

psql -c "SELECT * FROM orders" --csv | tuitab -t csv
sqlite3 app.db ".mode csv" ".headers on" "SELECT * FROM users" | tuitab -t csv

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Key bindings

Navigation

Key	Action
h / l	Move column left / right
j / k	Move row down / up
g / G	Jump to first / last row
0 / $	Jump to first / last column
PgUp / PgDn	Page up / down

Filtering & search

Key	Action
/	Start text search
n / N	Next / previous match
c	Clear search highlight
,	Select rows by cell value
|	Filter rows by expression (e.g. |!=age > 30)

Columns

Key	Action
=	Add computed column (expression)
t	Set column type
!	Pin / unpin column (used as reference for charts & pivot)
_	Cycle column width
+ / -	Add / clear column aggregator
Z	Quick aggregate (sum visible selection)

Sorting

Key	Action
Enter	Sort ascending by current column
Shift+Enter	Sort descending
r	Reset sort order

Views

Key	Action
V	Chart current column (histogram / frequency). With a pinned column: line chart or bar chart
I	Column statistics (describe sheet)
T	Transpose table
F	Frequency table
W	Pivot table
J	JOIN with another table
?	Help popup

Rows

Key	Action
s / u	Select / unselect row
"	Create new sheet from selected rows
d	Delete selected rows
y prefix	Yank (copy) operations
p	Paste rows

File

Key	Action
Ctrl+S	Save file
q	Quit

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Chart types

Press V on a column to open a chart. Behaviour depends on whether a reference column is pinned with !:

Cursor column	Pinned column (!)	Chart
Numeric	—	Histogram (Freedman-Diaconis bins)
Categorical	—	Frequency bar chart
Numeric	Date / Datetime	Line chart (aggregation popup: sum/count/avg/median/min/max)
Categorical	Date / Datetime	Line chart (auto count)
Numeric	Categorical	Grouped bar chart (aggregation popup)

Charts automatically switch between vertical and horizontal layout based on label length.

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JOIN

Press J in normal mode to start a step-by-step wizard that joins the current table with another table.

Step 1 — pick the right-hand table

A popup lists two options:

• [Browse file...] — type a file path (Tab for autocomplete). Any format tuitab can open is accepted: CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, SQLite, DuckDB.
• Open sheets — if you already have other sheets open in the stack (e.g. you navigated to them earlier), they appear here and can be selected directly.

Step 2 — choose join type

Option	SQL equivalent	Rows kept
INNER	INNER JOIN	Only rows with a match in both tables
LEFT	LEFT JOIN	All rows from the left table; unmatched right cells are null
RIGHT	RIGHT JOIN	All rows from the right table; unmatched left cells are null
OUTER	FULL OUTER JOIN	All rows from both tables

Step 3 — select left key columns

A checkbox list of the current table's columns appears. Press Space to toggle columns that will be used as join keys. The order of selection matters: key 1 on the left matches key 1 on the right. Press Enter to continue.

Step 4 — select right key columns

Same checkbox list for the right-hand table. Columns whose names match the selected left keys are pre-selected. Adjust as needed and press Enter to execute the join.

The key count must match: if you selected two left keys, select exactly two right keys. An error is shown in the status bar if they don't match.

Result

A new sheet is pushed onto the stack with the title left JOIN right. Press Esc or q to return to the original table.

Duplicate column names (non-key columns present in both tables) receive a _right suffix in the result automatically.

Example

# orders.csv has columns: order_id, customer_id, amount
# customers.csv has columns: customer_id, name, country

tuitab orders.csv

1. Press J
2. Select [Browse file...], type customers.csv, press Enter
3. Select LEFT, press Enter
4. Toggle customer_id on the left, press Enter
5. Toggle customer_id on the right, press Enter

Result: orders enriched with customer name and country.

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Expression syntax

Used in = (computed columns) and |!= (row filter):

age * 2
price / 100
name contains "Smith"
date > 2024-01-01
amount in (100, 200, 300)
category != "N/A"

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Acknowledgements

tuitab is inspired by VisiData — a brilliant terminal spreadsheet multitool by Saul Pwanson. If you find tuitab useful, check out VisiData too.

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.