RDS Viewer for VS Code

📊 View and explore R Data Serialization (RDS) files directly in Visual Studio Code.

Features

🚀 Main Features

Tabbed Interface: Switch between Summary and Data views
Excel-like Data Viewer: Browse your data with familiar spreadsheet interface
Smart Data Loading: Automatically loads data in chunks for performance
Navigation: Jump to any row, navigate by 100/1000 rows
Column Navigation: View 10 columns at a time or toggle to see all
Search & Highlight: Find and highlight text across your dataset
Export Options: Export to CSV, JSON, or Excel formats
Row & Cell Selection: Click to select and highlight rows or cells

📋 Supported Data Types

Data frames (with full variable analysis)
Lists (including nested structures)
Vectors (numeric, character, logical, factor)
Matrices
Time series objects
Complex S3/S4 objects

🎯 Key Features

Fast preview: Summary information loads instantly, even for large files
Smart data loading: Only loads full data when needed
WebView UI: Clean interface with sortable tables
Context menus: Right-click any .rds file to view summary or preview
Secure: Runs R in isolated subprocess with no external dependencies

Requirements

R installation: R must be installed on your system
- Download from: https://www.r-project.org/
- The extension will auto-detect R in common locations
- Or configure custom path in settings
R packages: The following R package is recommended:
```
install.packages("jsonlite")
```

Installation

Install the extension from VS Code Marketplace (coming soon)

Or install from VSIX file:

code --install-extension rds-viewer-1.0.0.vsix

Usage

Opening RDS Files

Right-click menu: Right-click any .rds file in the Explorer
- Select "Show RDS Summary" for quick overview
- Select "Open RDS Preview" for full data view
Command Palette: Press Cmd+Shift+P (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux)
- Type "RDS: Show Summary"
- Type "RDS: Open Preview"
File association: Double-click any .rds file to open with the viewer

Understanding the Summary View

The summary view provides:

File Information

File name and size
Last modified date
R version compatibility

Object Overview

Object type (data.frame, list, vector, etc.)
Object class (including custom S3/S4 classes)
Memory usage

Data Frame Details

Dimensions: Number of rows and columns
Complete cases: Rows without any missing values
Variables table:
- Variable name (click to copy)
- Data type and class
- Number of unique values
- Missing value count and percentage
- Statistical summary for numeric variables
- Factor levels for categorical variables

Configuration

Configure the extension in VS Code settings:

{
  "rdsViewer.rPath": "/usr/local/bin/R",          // Path to R executable
  "rdsViewer.maxPreviewRows": 1000,               // Max rows to display
  "rdsViewer.showSummaryOnOpen": true,            // Show summary by default
  "rdsViewer.summaryPanelPosition": "left"        // Panel position: top/left/right/popup
}

Examples

Sample Data Frame Summary

📊 Data Frame Summary
Dimensions: 10,000 rows × 25 columns
Complete Rows: 8,543 (85.43%)
Missing Cells: 2,341 (0.94%)

📋 Variables (25)
┌─────────┬──────────┬─────────┬────────┐
│ Variable│ Type     │ Missing │ Summary│
├─────────┼──────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ id      │ integer  │ 0       │ 1~10000│
│ age     │ numeric  │ 12      │ μ=42.3 │
│ gender  │ factor   │ 0       │ 2 levels│
└─────────┴──────────┴─────────┴────────┘

Development

Building from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/hoon-snuecse/rds-viewer.git
cd rds-viewer

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Compile TypeScript
npm run compile

# Run in development mode
code .
# Then press F5 to launch extension development host

Testing

Test files are included in the test-data/ directory:

sample_dataframe.rds - Basic data frame with mixed types
sample_large_dataframe.rds - Large dataset (10,000 rows)
sample_complex_list.rds - Nested list structure
sample_vector.rds - Numeric vector
sample_matrix.rds - Matrix data

Troubleshooting

R not found

Ensure R is installed: Run R --version in terminal
Configure R path in settings: rdsViewer.rPath
On macOS with Homebrew: Path is usually /opt/homebrew/bin/R
On Windows: Path is usually C:\Program Files\R\R-4.x.x\bin\R.exe

RDS file won't open

Check file permissions
Ensure file is not corrupted: Try readRDS("file.rds") in R console
Check VS Code Output panel for error messages

Missing jsonlite package

Install in R console:

install.packages("jsonlite")

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch
Submit a pull request

Report issues at: https://github.com/hoon-snuecse/rds-viewer/issues

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details

Acknowledgments

Inspired by Excel Viewer extension architecture
Uses R and jsonlite for data processing
Built with VS Code Extension API

Roadmap

Phase 1 (Current) ✅

[x] Basic RDS file reading
[x] Summary information display
[x] WebView UI
[x] Data frame preview

Phase 2 (Completed) ✅

[x] CSV/Excel/JSON export
[x] Search and filter with highlighting
[x] Performance optimization with infinite scroll
[x] Column pagination for wide datasets

Enjoy exploring your R data in VS Code! 🎉

RDS Viewer

jonghoonkim