tabx

A simple, fast command-line tool to convert between table formats (Markdown, MySQL, PostgreSQL, CSV, TSV) with automatic format detection.

Installation

# Build from source
cargo build --release

# Install globally  
cargo install --path .

Usage

# Basic usage - reads stdin, writes stdout
pbpaste | tabx | pbcopy

# Convert to CSV
cat data.txt | tabx -o csv > clean.csv

# Force input format
mysql -e "SELECT * FROM users" | tabx -i mysql

Examples

# Database output to spreadsheet
mysql -e "SELECT * FROM companies" | tabx -o csv > companies.csv
psql -c "SELECT * FROM users" | tabx | pbcopy

# File conversion
cat README.md | tabx > tables.tsv
cat data.csv | tabx | cut -f1,3 > selected_columns.tsv

# Pipeline composition
pbpaste | tabx | grep "active" | wc -l
tail -n +3 input.txt | tabx | head -10

Supported Formats

Format	Auto-detection	Example Source
MySQL	`+---+` borders	`mysql -e "SELECT ..."`
PostgreSQL	`----+----` separators	`psql -c "SELECT ..."`
Markdown	`\|---\|` separator lines	Documentation tables
CSV	Comma-separated	Data files, Excel exports
TSV	Tab-separated	Spreadsheet exports

Output formats: TSV (default), CSV, or custom delimiter.

Command-line Options

Usage: tabx [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -i, --input-format <FORMAT>      Force input format (auto, markdown, mysql, postgres, csv, tsv)
  -o, --output-format <FORMAT>     Output format (tsv, csv) [default: tsv]
  -d, --delimiter <CHAR>           Custom output delimiter
      --input-delimiter <CHAR>     Custom input delimiter for CSV/TSV
  -h, --help                       Print help
  -V, --version                    Print version

Delimiter Requirements:

Must be a single ASCII character
Control characters are not allowed (except tab \t for TSV)
Common valid delimiters: , (comma), | (pipe), ; (semicolon), : (colon)

Format Examples

MySQL → TSV

mysql -e "SELECT id, name FROM users" | tabx

+----+-------+          id	name
| id | name  |    →     1	Alice
+----+-------+          2	Bob
|  1 | Alice |
|  2 | Bob   |
+----+-------+

Markdown → CSV

cat docs.md | tabx -o csv

| API | Method  |        API,Method
|-----|---------|   →    /users,GET
| /users | GET  |        /posts,POST
| /posts | POST |

PostgreSQL → TSV

psql -c "SELECT * FROM products" | tabx

 id | name          id	name
----+-------   →    1	Coffee
  1 | Coffee        2	Tea
  2 | Tea

Development

git clone https://github.com/acamino/table-extractor
cd table-extractor
cargo build
cargo test
cargo install --path .

table-extractor 0.2.0