Working with CSV Files in Terminal

When working with CSV files in the terminal, you can make them readable by aligning columns neatly using the column command:

cat inventory.csv | column -t -s,

Flag	Description
-s	Specifies the delimiter (comma here)
-t	Formats output into a clean table

This is perfect for quick data inspection without opening a spreadsheet application.

Example

# Sample CSV content
cat inventory.csv
#name,quantity,price
#Apple,100,1.50
#Banana,200,0.75
#Orange,150,2.00

# Formatted output
cat inventory.csv | column -t -s,
#name    quantity  price
#Apple   100       1.50
#Banana  200       0.75
#Orange  150       2.00