Preview a file
filedge preview displays a formatted table of rows from any supported file — useful for spot-checking data or inspecting specific rows flagged as problematic.
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
<file> |
required | File to preview (local path or cloud URI) |
--format |
auto from extension | File format: csv, ndjson, or parquet |
--rows |
10 | Number of rows to display |
--start-row |
1 | First row to display (1-indexed) |
Exit codes: 0 on success, 2 on error.
Basic usage
Output is a fixed-width ASCII table with row numbers:
# │ name │ amount │ order_date
────┼─────────┼────────┼────────────
1 │ Alice │ 9.99 │ 2024-01-15
2 │ Bob │ 14.50 │ 2024-01-16
3 │ Carol │ 0.01 │ 2024-01-16
Jumping to a specific row
If a log or validation report says row 5,000 has bad data, jump directly to it:
# │ name │ amount │ order_date
───────┼───────┼────────┼────────────
5000 │ Dave │ n/a │ 2024-03-01
5001 │ Eve │ 7.25 │ 2024-03-01
5002 │ Frank │ 12.00 │ 2024-03-02
5003 │ Grace │ - │ 2024-03-03
5004 │ Heidi │ 3.50 │ 2024-03-04
This is especially useful for large files that are impractical to open in a text editor.
Wide files
When a file has more columns than fit in 120 characters, preview shows the columns that fit and lists the rest below the table:
# │ id │ name │ amount
────┼────┼─────────┼────────
1 │ 1 │ Alice │ 9.99
2 │ 2 │ Bob │ 14.50
Columns not shown (too wide): description, tags, metadata, created_at
Parquet files
Parquet is detected automatically from the .parquet extension:
Or use --format parquet explicitly:
Cloud files
Preview files on S3, GCS, or Azure Blob Storage using their native URIs:
Credentials are picked up from the environment (AWS profile, GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS, etc.).