DataTUI

A fast, keyboard‑first terminal data viewer built with Rust and Ratatui. DataTUI lets you explore CSV/TSV, Excel, and SQLite data with tabs, sorting, filtering, SQL (via Polars), and more.

Features

• Tabbed data views with quick navigation
• CSV/TSV, Excel, and SQLite import flows
• Polars‑backed SQL queries and lazy evaluation
• Sorting, filtering (builder dialog + quick filters), column width management
• Find, Find All with contextual results, and value viewer with optional auto‑expand
• JMESPath transforms and Add Columns from expressions
• Workspace persistence (state + current views) with Parquet snapshots

Install

From source in this repo:

cargo build --release
# binary at target/release/datatui

Or run locally:

cargo run --release --bin datatui

Usage

datatui [--logging error|warn|info|debug|trace]

Loading data with --load

Preload one or more datasets on startup by repeating --load. Each spec is:

kind:path;key=value;flag

• Multiple --load flags are allowed; each adds a dataset to import.
• path can be a file path, a glob pattern (*, ?, [abc]), or STDIN/-.
• Bare flags without =value are treated as boolean true.

Kinds and options

• CSV/TSV/TEXT: text, csv, tsv, psv

  • Options: delim/delimiter (,, comma, tab, |, pipe, psv, space, or char:x), header/has_header (true|false), quote/quote_char (char or none), escape/escape_char (char or none), merge (true|false).
  • Examples:
    • --load 'csv:C:\\data\\sales.csv;header=true'
    • --load 'tsv:C:\\data\\export.tsv;header=false'
    • --load 'text:C:\\data\\file.txt;delim=tab;quote=none'
    • --load 'psv:C:\\data\\*.psv;header=true;merge=true' (globs; merged into a temp file)

• Excel: xlsx, xls

  • Options: all_sheets (true|false, default true), sheets/sheet (comma list).
  • Examples:
    • --load 'xlsx:C:\\data\\book.xlsx' (all sheets)
    • --load 'xlsx:C:\\data\\book.xlsx;all_sheets=false;sheets=Sheet1,Sheet3'

• SQLite: sqlite, db

  • Options: import_all_tables (true|false), table (single), tables (comma list).
  • Examples:
    • --load 'sqlite:C:\\db\\app.sqlite;table=users'
    • --load 'sqlite:C:\\db\\app.sqlite;tables=users,orders'
    • --load 'sqlite:C:\\db\\app.sqlite;import_all_tables=true'

• Parquet: parquet

  • Options: none
  • Example: --load 'parquet:C:\\data\\metrics.parquet'

• JSON / NDJSON: json, jsonl, ndjson

  • Options: ndjson (true|false), records (path to array of records), merge (true|false, only for NDJSON).
  • Examples:
    • --load 'json:C:\\data\\records.json;records=data.items'
    • --load 'jsonl:C:\\logs\\*.jsonl;merge=true' (globs; merged into a temp .jsonl)

Reading from STDIN

• Use STDIN or - as the path. The temp file extension is inferred from kind and options.
• Examples:
  • Bash: cat data.json | datatui --load 'json:STDIN'
  • PowerShell: Get-Content -Raw data.json | datatui --load 'json:-'

Multiple datasets

Repeat --load to queue several datasets; they will import automatically on startup.

Customizing key bindings

• Default user config file: ~/.datatui-config.json5. On first run, this file is created from built‑in defaults. Override with --config PATH.
• Keybindings are organized by mode (grouping) like Global, DataTabManager, and per‑dialog modes. The on‑screen Instructions bar shows current keys for common actions.
• Open the Keybindings dialog, select a grouping, highlight an action, choose Start Rebinding, press your key combo, then press Enter to apply. Use Clear to remove a binding.
• Save As in the Keybindings dialog exports only the keybindings as JSON5. To make them default, save to your user config path or pass the file via --config PATH.

Workspaces and persistence

When a valid workspace folder is set in Project Settings, DataTUI persists:

• State file: datatui_workspace_state.json
• Settings file: datatui_workspace_settings.json
• Current DataFrame snapshots: .datatui/tabs/<dataset-id>.parquet

On exit or when requested, TDV writes the current view to Parquet per tab (if applicable) so you can quickly resume where you left off.

Development

• Rust toolchain required
• Build: cargo build (or --release)
• Run tests (if present): cargo test