xan is a high-performance command-line tool for processing CSV files directly from the shell, built in Rust for speed and memory efficiency. It leverages SIMD-accelerated parsing and parallel processing to handle gigabyte-sized datasets with ease.

Key capabilities include:

Data manipulation: Preview, filter, slice, sort, aggregate, join, deduplicate and group CSV records
Terminal visualizations: Generate scatter plots, histograms, time series, correlation matrices, heatmaps and categorical plots directly in your terminal
Expression language: Execute complex transformations using a custom, optimized language tailored for CSV data—significantly faster than Python or JavaScript
Format flexibility: Process CSV-adjacent formats (CDX, VCF, GTF, SAM, BED) and convert to/from JSON, Excel, and NumPy arrays
Advanced features: Parallel computation, shell tab completion, lexicometry utilities, and graph theory operations
Specialized tools: Search, count rows, deduplicate data, and perform grouped analysis

Originally forked from xsv, xan has been extensively rewritten to support research workflows in social sciences and web data analysis. It combines the simplicity of CSV with powerful analytical capabilities, making it ideal for programmers, data analysts, and researchers working with structured data at any scale.

Cargo