nothing-less 0.1.4

A TUI paging application with enhanced support for tabular data and real-time streaming

Nothing-less (nless)

Nless is a TUI paging application (based on the awesome Textual library) with vi-like keybindings. Nless has enhanced functionality for parsing tabular data:

• inferring file delimiters
• delimiter swapping on the fly
• regex-based parsing of raw logs into tabular data using Python's regex engine
• filtering
• sorting
• searching
• real-time event parsing.

Getting started

Dependencies

• python>=3.13

Installation

pip install nothing-less

Usage

• pipe the output of a command to nless to parse the output $COMMAND | nless
• read a file with nless nless $FILE_NAME
• redirect a file into nless nless < $FILE_NAME
• Once output is loaded, press ? to view the keybindings

Demos

Basic functionality

The below demo shows basic functionality:

• starting with a search /
• applying that search &
• filtering the selected column by the value within the selected cell F
• swapping the delimiter D (raw and ,)

Streaming functionality

The below demo showcases some of nless's features for handling streaming input, and interacting with unknown delimitation:

• The nless view stays up-to-date as new log lines arrive on stdin (allows pipeline commands, or redirecting a file into nless)
• Showcases using a custom (Python engine) regex, example - {(?P<severity>.*)}\((?P<user>.*)\) - (?P<message>.*) - to parse raw logs into tabular fields.
• Sorts, filters, and searches on those fields.
• Flips the delimiter back to raw, sorts, searches, and filters on the raw logs

Features & Functionality

Navigation:

• h - move cursor left
• l - move cursor right
• j - move cursor down
• k - move cursor up
• 0 - jump to first column
• $ - jump to final column
• g - jump to first row
• G - jump to final row
• w - move cursor right
• b - move cursor left

Filtering:

• f - will filter the current column and prompt for a filter
• F - will filter the current column by the highlighted cell
• | - will filter ALL columns and prompt for a filter
• & - applies the current search as a filter across all columns

Searching:

• / - will prompt for a search value and jump to the first match
• * - will search all columns for the current highglighted cell value
• n - jump to the next match
• N - jump to previous match
• p - jump to previous match

Sorting:

• s - toggles ascending/descending sort on the current column

Delimiter/file parsing:

• By default, nless will attempt to infer a file delimiter from the first few rows sent through stdin. It uses common delimiters to start - ,, , |, \t, etc.
• D - you can use D to explicitly swap the delimiter on the fly. Just type in one of the common delimiters above, and the rows will be re-parsed into a tabular format.
• D - alternatively, you can pass in a regex with named capture groups. Those named groups will become the tabular columns, and each row will be parsed and split across those groups. Example {(?P<severity>.*)}\((?P<user>.*)\) - (?P<message>.*)
• D - additionally you can just pass the word raw to see the raw lines behind the data. You can still sort, filter, and sarch the raw lines.
• D - last, you can pass a delimiter value of (two spaces). This will parse text that has been delimited utilizing multiple spaces, while preserving values that have a single space. This is most commonly useful for parsing kubernetes output (kubectl get pods -w), for example.