Viewing tab delimited files in Mac OS

I kept trying to open TSV (tab separated values) files in NeoOffice or OpenOffice, but they open those files by default in Writer as a document instead of a spreadsheet. Since I just want to view the TSV files to verify they're formatted correctly from my various programming projects, I wanted a simple TSV viewer.

There are plenty of software options that offer *demos* but I found ViewCSVTAB that is listed on Macupdate as freeware. The problem with TSV files is that ViewCSVTAB thinks it should parse .txt files as .tsv. Since I don't want to change my file names every time to get them checked in ViewCSVTAB, I used vi to hack the source and change instances of txt to tsv. Now the attached version will allow you to select .tsv files as the TAB file to parse and preview.

For CSV files, this doesn't interpret or strip quotes from around values in quoted CSV files. It strictly replaces commas as columns.

AttachmentSize
ViewCSVTAB.app.zip3.55 MB


» deekayen's blog · Printer-friendly version

Post new comment

  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <hr /> <a> <p> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <blockquote> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • You may post code using <code>...</code> (generic) or <?php ... ?> (highlighted PHP) tags.

More information about formatting options

By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.