Viewing

Rabbet provides several commands for viewing and inspecting data files in a formatted table view. These commands are useful for quickly examining your data without performing any transformations.

Commands Overview

cat - Display the entire contents of a file
head - Display the first N rows of a file
tail - Display the last N rows of a file

Basic Usage

rabbet cat <file>
rabbet head <file> [-n <number>]
rabbet tail <file> [-n <number>]

Common Options

All viewing commands support these options:

--format: Output format - table (default), csv, json, or jsonl
--delimiter: Input file delimiter (default: ,)
--no-header: Treat the first row as data instead of column headers

Examples

Viewing Entire Files with `cat`

Display all rows from a CSV file in a formatted table:

Test cat command with table format output

$ rabbet cat data/orders/orders.csv
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ order_id    customer_id    product_id    quantity   price   order_date │
╞════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡
│ ORDER-001   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-005   1          10.0    2022-01-01 │
│ ORDER-002   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-005   2          20.0    2022-01-02 │
│ ORDER-003   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-003   3          30.0    2022-01-03 │
│ ORDER-004   CUSTOMER-004   PRODUCT-002   4          40.0    2022-01-04 │
│ ORDER-005   CUSTOMER-005   PRODUCT-001   5          50.0    2022-01-05 │
│ ORDER-006   CUSTOMER-006   PRODUCT-004   6          60.0    2022-01-06 │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Viewing First Rows with `head`

Display the first 3 rows of a file:

Test head command with table format output

$ rabbet head data/orders/orders.csv -n 3
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ order_id    customer_id    product_id    quantity   price   order_date │
╞════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡
│ ORDER-001   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-005   1          10.0    2022-01-01 │
│ ORDER-002   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-005   2          20.0    2022-01-02 │
│ ORDER-003   CUSTOMER-003   PRODUCT-003   3          30.0    2022-01-03 │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Viewing Last Rows with `tail`

Display the last 3 rows of a file:

Test tail command with table format output

$ rabbet tail data/orders/orders.csv -n 3
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ order_id    customer_id    product_id    quantity   price   order_date │
╞════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡
│ ORDER-004   CUSTOMER-004   PRODUCT-002   4          40.0    2022-01-04 │
│ ORDER-005   CUSTOMER-005   PRODUCT-001   5          50.0    2022-01-05 │
│ ORDER-006   CUSTOMER-006   PRODUCT-004   6          60.0    2022-01-06 │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Use Cases

Quick inspection: Use cat for small files to see all data at once
Preview large files: Use head to check the structure and first few rows
Check recent entries: Use tail to see the most recent records in time-series or log data
Verify headers: Use head -n 1 to quickly check column names
Data validation: Combine with other formats (--format csv) to verify parsing

Notes

The default number of rows for head and tail is 10 when -n is not specified
Table format automatically truncates long values for display
For very wide tables, consider using --format csv for better readability
These commands preserve the original data types and formatting

Keyboard shortcuts

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