Install tidy-viewer with Homebrew, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• tidy-viewer

Project history

The public GitHub repository was created in April 2021. The README presents the project as a terminal adaptation of ideas from R's pillar/tibble formatting, emphasizing significant-digit display, column styling, missing-value coloring, and width-aware truncation for data tables.

The project grew from a CSV pretty-printer into a small data-viewing workspace: the README now documents a Cargo workspace with tidy-viewer-core, tidy-viewer-cli, and tidy-viewer-py, and it highlights support beyond CSV/TSV into Parquet, Feather, and IPC-oriented data workflows.

Adoption history

Official installation instructions list Cargo, Debian packages, AUR, Snap, Homebrew, and prebuilt release binaries for macOS, ARM, Windows, and source builds. That package spread is the clearest source-backed sign that the tool moved beyond a single-language Rust crate into the usual CLI distribution channels.

The repository metadata also shows the project positioned with tags such as cli, csv, data-science, dataframe, terminal, and pretty-printer, matching its adoption by users who want a fast terminal preview before reaching for heavier dataframe or spreadsheet tools.

How it is used

Tidy Viewer is used as a terminal inspection step for delimited and columnar data: examples in the README pipe CSV files into tv, pass files as arguments, and combine color output with pagers such as less -R or bat.

For package-manager users, its appeal is that it turns common shell workflows around CSV or Parquet files into a readable table without starting Python, R, a database shell, or a spreadsheet application.

Why package nerds care

In the package-nerd niche, Tidy Viewer belongs to the family of focused Rust CLIs that make Unix pipelines friendlier for data work. It is interesting less as an ecosystem-defining project and more as a practical bridge between classic text streams and dataframe-style terminal presentation.

Its Homebrew formula matters because macOS users can install the same tiny table viewer they might otherwise install via Cargo, keeping shell aliases and data-preview scripts portable across package managers.

Timeline

• 2021: GitHub repository created for alexhallam/tv.
• 2021-2026: Official README documents distribution through Cargo, Debian, AUR, Snap, Homebrew, and release binaries.
• 2020s: README documents expansion from CSV-oriented viewing to Parquet, Feather, IPC, streaming, and Python bindings.

Related projects

• The README names R's pillar project as formatting inspiration.
• The README positions tv beside command-line data manipulation tools and pagers rather than as a replacement for full dataframe systems.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/alexhallam/tv - GitHub repository metadata for creation date, language, topics, and repository status.
• https://github.com/alexhallam/tv#readme - official README for purpose, features, installation channels, examples, architecture, and inspiration.