CSV ClearView - The Ultimate CSV Editor for VS Code

Transform your CSV workflow with a powerful, spreadsheet-like editor built for data engineers, analysts, and scientists. CSV ClearView brings enterprise-grade CSV viewing and editing to VS Code with color-coded columns, in-editor SQL queries, advanced data profiling, duplicate detection, and seamless handling of files up to 500MB+.

Why CSV ClearView?

Stop switching between VS Code and Excel. CSV ClearView delivers a complete data exploration experience without leaving your editor:

• 📊 Work with massive files - Handle 500MB+ CSV files with virtual scrolling and instant head/tail sampling
• 🔍 Query your data instantly - Run SQL SELECT queries directly on your CSV without external tools
• 📈 Understand your data - Built-in statistics, type inference, and data profiling for every column
• 🎨 Stay oriented - Color-coded columns, sticky headers, and freeze panes keep you focused
• ✏️ Edit with confidence - In-place cell editing with full undo/redo support
• 🔎 Find duplicates instantly - One-click duplicate detection with grouped, line-numbered results
• ⚡ Lightning fast - Virtual rendering keeps even the largest files responsive

Perfect for data analysis, ETL pipeline debugging, machine learning dataset inspection, log file analysis, and database exports.

Key Features

🎨 Visual Clarity

• Colored Columns: Each column is automatically color-coded for instant visual separation (adapts to dark/light themes)
• Sticky Header: Header row stays fixed at the top while scrolling through thousands of rows
• Alternating Rows: Zebra-striping for improved row readability
• Freeze Panes: Right-click any column header to freeze it Excel-style for easy comparison

🔍 Data Analysis & Profiling

• SQL Queries: Run full SQL SELECT statements on your CSV data (powered by AlaSQL)
  • Example: SELECT * FROM ? WHERE [Price] > 100 ORDER BY [Date] DESC
  • Query history with bash-style ↑/↓ navigation (stores up to 50 queries)
• Column Statistics: Shift+click any column header for instant stats
  • Numeric: min, max, mean, median, std dev, percentiles
  • Date: earliest, latest
  • String: length stats, frequency distribution
  • All: null count, distinct values, top-5 most common values
• Data Type Inference: Automatic detection of integers, floats, dates, booleans, and strings with visual badges
• Schema Summary Panel: Click Profile for a complete data dictionary showing type, nulls, distinct count, and ranges for every column

🔎 Duplicate Detection

• One-click scan: Click Duplicates to instantly find all duplicate rows across the entire file
• Grouped view: "Show only duplicates" hides non-duplicate rows and groups matching rows together with a thin divider between each group
• Original line numbers: A # column shows the exact CSV line number of every duplicate row so you can find it in the source file immediately
• Amber highlights: Duplicate rows are tinted amber in the normal view for quick visual scanning
• Non-destructive: Dismiss or restore the full table at any time — your data is never changed

🧭 Navigation

• Go to Row: Jump to any row by number instantly — the target row flashes to confirm navigation
• Error markers: Visual markers in the scrollbar for quick jumping to parsing errors

📊 Large File Support

• Virtual Scrolling: Handle 500MB+ files with only visible rows rendered
• Head/Tail Sampling: Instant preview of massive files without loading everything
• Smart Chunking: Files are processed in chunks to keep VS Code responsive
• Configurable Thresholds: Set your own limits for when large-file mode kicks in

✏️ Editing & Validation

• In-Place Cell Editing: Double-click any cell to edit with full undo/redo support
• CSV Linting: Automatic detection of rows with inconsistent column counts
• Native Diagnostics: Parsing errors surface in VS Code's Problems pane

🔧 Format Flexibility

• Auto-Delimiter Detection: Automatically recognizes comma, tab, pipe, and semicolon delimiters
• Multi-Format Support: .csv, .tsv, .tab, .psv files open natively
• Open Any File: Use the "Open with CSV ClearView" command (right-click Explorer or Command Palette) to open any file — .txt, .dat, .log, etc. — in the CSV editor
• Manual Override: Click the delimiter badge in the toolbar to change parsing
• Type-Aware Sorting: Click column headers to sort with intelligent handling of numbers, dates, and strings

Use Cases

✅ Data Engineers - Debug ETL pipelines, validate transformations, inspect data quality
✅ Data Scientists - Quick dataset exploration, feature analysis, ML data validation
✅ Analysts - Ad-hoc SQL queries, statistical summaries, large report inspection
✅ Developers - Log file analysis, database export review, test data generation
✅ DBAs - Query result inspection, data migration validation, schema analysis

Quick Start

1. Open any CSV file - Just open .csv, .tsv, .tab, or .psv files and CSV ClearView activates automatically
2. Open any file - Right-click any file in the Explorer and choose "Open with CSV ClearView" to open .txt, .dat, .log, or any other delimiter-separated file
3. Query your data - Type SQL in the query bar at the top: SELECT * FROM ? WHERE [Department] = 'Sales' ORDER BY [Salary] DESC
4. Find duplicates - Click Duplicates to scan for duplicate rows, then Show only duplicates to see them grouped with original line numbers
5. Jump to any row - Click Go to Row and type a row number to navigate instantly
6. Explore statistics - Shift+click any column header for detailed stats or click Profile for a full data summary
7. Sort and freeze - Click column headers to sort, right-click to freeze panes
8. Edit cells - Double-click any cell to edit in-place with undo/redo support
9. Handle large files - For 20MB+ files, choose Head, Tail, or Plain Text mode when prompted

Configuration

Customize CSV ClearView through VS Code settings:

SQL Query Guide

CSV ClearView includes a full SQL engine (AlaSQL) for ad-hoc data analysis:

• Table name: Always use ? to reference your CSV data
• Column names with spaces: Wrap in brackets: [First Name], [Unit Price]
• Column names are case-sensitive: [Price] and [price] are treated as different columns — use the exact casing from the header row
• String literals: Use single quotes: 'Smith', 'New York'
• Allowed operations: Only SELECT statements (safety restriction)
• Blocked operations: DROP, DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, CREATE, ALTER, etc.

Example queries:

-- Filter and sort
SELECT * FROM ? WHERE [Age] > 25 ORDER BY [Salary] DESC

-- Aggregate statistics
SELECT [Department], COUNT(*) as count, AVG([Salary]) as avg_salary 
FROM ? GROUP BY [Department]

-- Complex conditions
SELECT * FROM ? WHERE [Status] = 'Active' AND [Revenue] > 10000

Supported File Formats

CSV ClearView automatically detects the delimiter but you can override it using the toolbar badge.

What's New

See the CHANGELOG for detailed release notes.

Latest Release (v1.0.8)

• New: Open with CSV ClearView command — Open any file (.txt, .dat, .log, etc.) in the CSV editor via right-click in the Explorer, editor tab context menu, or the Command Palette — no matter the file extension

Recent Highlights (v1.0.7)

• New: Duplicate Row Detection — One-click scan finds all duplicate rows, highlights them in amber, and groups them in a focused view with original CSV line numbers
• New: Go to Row — Jump to any row by number with a single keystroke; the target row flashes to confirm
• Toolbar redesign — Cleaner unified button style with logical groupings

Earlier (v1.0.3–v1.0.6)

• Moved SQL execution to the extension host — removed unsafe-eval from Content Security Policy
• Fixed SQL aggregation functions (AVG, SUM, MIN, MAX) on numeric CSV columns
• Better SQL error messages for common mistakes (double quotes, etc.)
• Dependency and security updates

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js (includes npm)
• Visual Studio Code

Build and Install Locally

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Compile and package the extension
npm run compile
node_modules/.bin/vsce package

# Install into your VS Code
code --install-extension csv-clearview-1.0.7.vsix

Debugging

1. Open the project folder in VS Code
2. Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host
3. Open any .csv file in the new window to test your changes

Keywords

CSV, TSV, viewer, editor, table, grid, spreadsheet, data analysis, SQL queries, data profiling, statistics, large files, virtual scrolling, duplicate detection, delimiter detection, data science, ETL, pipe-separated, tab-separated, data visualization, column sorting, data validation, go to row, row navigation

License

MIT

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