Visidata

VisiData Plugin

VisiData is a terminal utility for exploring and arranging tabular data. It supports 40+ formats and can work interactively (TUI) or in batch mode.

Commands

Self

• visidata self version — Print visidata version

Data Operations

• visidata data convert -o <output.ext> <input.ext> — Convert between formats in batch mode
• visidata data inspect <input> — Open a data file in interactive TUI mode
• visidata data replay -p <cmdlog> [-b] [-o <output>] — Replay a saved cmdlog

Passthrough

• visidata _ _ <args> — Raw passthrough for any vd command

Usage Examples

• "convert data.csv to data.json"
• "convert data.tsv to data.xlsx"
• "inspect a CSV file"
• "open a JSON file in the terminal spreadsheet"
• "show version of visidata"

Installation

pip install visidata
# or
brew install visidata

Key Features

• 40+ supported file formats (CSV, TSV, JSON, XLSX, SQLite, Parquet, HTML, etc.)
• Interactive TUI spreadsheet with keyboard-driven navigation
• Batch mode for format conversion (-b -o output.ext)
• Piped input support (stdin)
• Python expression evaluation for column derivation
• Column transformations, regex extraction, and type conversion
• Saved cmdlog for workflow replay
• Undo/redo support
• gnuplot integration for quick charting

Batch Conversion Examples

# Pipe through stdin
curl api.example.com/data.json | vd -b -o data.tsv -

# Convert CSV to JSON
vd -b -o output.json input.csv

# Convert Excel to TSV
vd -b -o output.tsv input.xlsx

# Force specific input format
vd -b -o output.csv input.json -f json