qsv 0.4.1

A tool that provides elastic and rapid filtering for efficient analysis of huge CSV files, such as eventlogs.

Quilter-CSV

A tool that provides elastic and rapid filtering for efficient analysis of huge CSV files, such as eventlogs.

This project is inspired by xsv. We are currently developing a tool that can process hundreds of gigabytes of data, which is challenging for many tools, and apply filters according to predefined configurations.

[!NOTE]
This project is in the early stages of development. Please be aware that frequent changes and updates are likely to occur.

Description

Motivation

In digital forensics and log analysis, it’s common to deal with extremely large CSV files—sometimes tens or even hundreds of gigabytes spread across dozens or hundreds of machines.
While many of these tasks are standardized, they often require using large, complex analysis tools with opaque specifications, or else writing intricate shell scripts that are difficult to maintain and debug.
The core feature of this tool is the quilt command, which directly and reliably executes predefined command-line tasks.
We hope this tool will serve as a solution for anyone facing similar challenges.

Architecture

This tool processes CSV files through three stages: an initializer, one or more chainable functions, and a finalizer. For example, you can load a csv file in the initializer, use chainable functions to filter, sort, and select columns, and then output the resulting csv file in the finalizer.

$ qsv {{INITIALIZER}} {{Arguments}} - {{CHAINABLE}} {{Arguments}} - {{FINALIZER}} {{Arguments}}

Each process must be explicitly separated by a hyphen ("-").

Usage

e.g. Below is an example of reading a CSV file, extracting rows that contain 4624 in the 'Event ID' column, and displaying the top 3 rows sorted by the 'Date and Time' column.

$ qsv load Security.csv - isin 'Event ID' 4624 - sort 'Date and Time' - head 3
shape: (3, 5)
┌─────────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┐
│ Level       ┆ Date and Time         ┆ Source                          ┆ Event ID ┆ Task Category │
│ ---         ┆ ---                   ┆ ---                             ┆ ---      ┆ ---           │
│ str         ┆ str                   ┆ str                             ┆ i64      ┆ str           │
╞═════════════╪═══════════════════════╪═════════════════════════════════╪══════════╪═══════════════╡
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:00:55 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:04:05 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:04:10 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
└─────────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┘

Initializers

load

Loads the specified CSV files.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	path	tuple[str]		The character used to separate fields within the CSV file.
Option	separator	str	","	The character used to split values.
Option	low_memory	bool	False	If True, enables a lower-memory processing mode, beneficial for handling very large files.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv

$ qsv load ./logs/*.csv

Chainable Functions

select

Selects only the specified columns.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colnames	Union[str, tuple[str]]		Specifies the column(s) to keep. Accepts a single column name or multiple column names.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - select 'Event ID'

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - select "Date and Time-Event ID"

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - select "'Date and Time,Event ID'"

isin

Filters rows containing the specified values.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colname	str		The name of the column to filter.
Argument	values	list[str]		A list of values to match. Rows that contain any of these values in the column are kept.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - isin 'Event ID' 4624,4634

contains

Filters rows where the specified column matches the given regex.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colname	str		The name of the column to test against the regex pattern.
Argument	pattern	str		A regular expression pattern used for matching values in the column.
Option	ignorecase	bool	False	If True, performs case-insensitive pattern matching.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - contains 'Date and Time' '10/6/2016'

sed

Replaces values using the specified regex.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colname	str		The name of the column whose values will be modified.
Argument	pattern	str		A regular expression pattern identifying substrings to replace.
Argument	replacement	str		The text that replaces matched substrings.
Option	ignorecase	bool	False	If True, the regex matching is performed in a case-insensitive manner.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - sed 'Date and Time' '/' '-'

grep

Treats all columns as strings and filters rows where any column matches the specified regex.
This function is similar to running a grep command while preserving the header row.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	pattern	str		A regular expression pattern used to filter rows. Any row with a match is kept.
Option	ignorecase	bool	False	If True, the regex match is case-insensitive.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - grep 'LogonType'

head

Selects only the first N lines.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Option	number	int	5	The number of rows to display from the start.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - head 10

tail

Selects only the last N lines.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Option	number	int	5	The number of rows to display from the end.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - tail 10

sort

Sorts all rows by the specified column values.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colnames	Union[str, tuple[str], list[str]]		One or more columns to sort by.
Option	desc	bool	False	If True, sorts in descending order rather than ascending.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - sort 'Date and Time'

sort

Counts duplicate rows, grouping by all columns.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - count

uniq

Remove duplicate rows based on the specified column names.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colnames	Union[str, tuple[str], list[str]]		Column(s) used to determine uniqueness. Rows with duplicate values are removed.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - uniq 'Event ID'

changetz

Changes the timezone of the specified date column.

The datetime format strings follow the same conventions as Python's datetime module (based on the C99 standard).

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colname	str		The name of the date/time column to convert.
Option	tz_from	str	"UTC"	The original timezone of the column's values.
Option	tz_to	str	"UTC"	The target timezone to convert values into.
Option	dt_format	str	AutoDetect	The datetime format for parsing values. If not provided, the format is automatically inferred.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - changetz 'Date and Time' --timezone_from=UTC --timezone_to=Asia/Tokyo --datetime_format="%m/%d/%Y %I:%M:%S %p"

renamecol

Renames the specified column.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	colname	str		The current name of the column to rename.
Argument	new_colname	str		The new name for the specified column.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - renamecol 'Event ID' 'EventID'

Finalizer

headers

Displays the column names of the data.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Option	plain	bool	False	If True, displays the column headers as plain text rather than a table.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - headers
┏━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ #  ┃ Column Name   ┃
┡━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 00 │ Level         │
│ 01 │ Date and Time │
│ 02 │ Source        │
│ 03 │ Event ID      │
│ 04 │ Task Category │
└────┴───────────────┘

stats

Displays the statistical information of the data.

$ qsv load ./Security.csv - stats
shape: (9, 6)
┌────────────┬─────────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ statistic  ┆ Level       ┆ Date and Time         ┆ Source                          ┆ Event ID    ┆ Task Category           │
│ ---        ┆ ---         ┆ ---                   ┆ ---                             ┆ ---         ┆ ---                     │
│ str        ┆ str         ┆ str                   ┆ str                             ┆ f64         ┆ str                     │
╞════════════╪═════════════╪═══════════════════════╪═════════════════════════════════╪═════════════╪═════════════════════════╡
│ count      ┆ 62031       ┆ 62031                 ┆ 62031                           ┆ 62031.0     ┆ 62031                   │
│ null_count ┆ 0           ┆ 0                     ┆ 0                               ┆ 0.0         ┆ 0                       │
│ mean       ┆ null        ┆ null                  ┆ null                            ┆ 5058.625897 ┆ null                    │
│ std        ┆ null        ┆ null                  ┆ null                            ┆ 199.775419  ┆ null                    │
│ min        ┆ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:00:35 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Eventlog      ┆ 1102.0      ┆ Credential Validation   │
│ 25%        ┆ null        ┆ null                  ┆ null                            ┆ 5152.0      ┆ null                    │
│ 50%        ┆ null        ┆ null                  ┆ null                            ┆ 5156.0      ┆ null                    │
│ 75%        ┆ null        ┆ null                  ┆ null                            ┆ 5157.0      ┆ null                    │
│ max        ┆ Information ┆ 10/7/2016 12:59:59 AM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 5158.0      ┆ User Account Management │
└────────────┴─────────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

showquery

Displays the data processing query.

$ qsv load Security.csv - showquery
naive plan: (run LazyFrame.explain(optimized=True) to see the optimized plan)

  Csv SCAN Security.csv
  PROJECT */5 COLUMNS

show

Displays the processing results in a table format to standard output.

$ qsv load Security.csv - show
Level,Date and Time,Source,Event ID,Task Category
Information,10/7/2016 06:38:24 PM,Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing,4658,File System
Information,10/7/2016 06:38:24 PM,Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing,4656,File System
Information,10/7/2016 06:38:24 PM,Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing,4658,File System
Information,10/7/2016 06:38:24 PM,Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing,4656,File System
Information,10/7/2016 06:38:24 PM,Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing,4658,File System

showtable

Outputs the processing results table to the standard output.

$ qsv load Security.csv - showtable
shape: (3, 5)
┌─────────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┐
│ Level       ┆ Date and Time         ┆ Source                          ┆ Event ID ┆ Task Category │
│ ---         ┆ ---                   ┆ ---                             ┆ ---      ┆ ---           │
│ str         ┆ str                   ┆ str                             ┆ i64      ┆ str           │
╞═════════════╪═══════════════════════╪═════════════════════════════════╪══════════╪═══════════════╡
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:00:55 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:04:05 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
│ Information ┆ 10/6/2016 01:04:10 PM ┆ Microsoft-Windows-Security-Aud… ┆ 4624     ┆ Logon         │
└─────────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┘

dump

Outputs the processing results to a CSV file.

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Option	path	str	yyyymmdd-HHMMSS_{QUERY}.csv	The file path where the filtered/output CSV data will be saved. If not specified, a timestamp-based filename is used.

$ qsv load Security.csv - dump ./Security-qsv.csv

Quilt

Quilt is a command-line tool that allows you to define a sequence of Initializer, Chainable Functions, and Finalizer processes in a YAML configuration file and execute them in a single pipeline.

Usage

Category	Parameter	Data Type	Default Value	Description
Argument	config	str		Path to a YAML configuration file/directory that defines initializers, chainable functions, and finalizers steps.
Argument	path	tuple[str]		One or more paths to CSV files to be processed according to the predefined rules in the configuration file.

Command Example

$ qsv quilt rules/test.yaml ./Security.csv

Configuration Example

rules/test.yaml

title: 'test'
description: 'test processes'
version: '0.1.0'
author: 'John Doe <[e-mail]>'
stages:
  test_stage: # arbitrary stage name
    type: process # operation type
    steps:
      load: 
      isin:
        colname: EventId
        values:
          - 4624
      head:
        number: 5
      select:
        colnames:
          - RecordNumber
          - TimeCreated
      changetz:
        colname: TimeCreated
        tz_from: UTC
        tz_to: Asia/Tokyo
        dt_format: "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%.f"
      showtable:

The above configuration file defines the following sequence of operations:

1. Load a CSV file.
2. Filter rows where the EventId column contains the value 4624.
3. Retrieve the first 5 rows.
4. Extract the RecordNumber and TimeCreated columns.
5. Convert the time zone of the TimeCreated column from UTC to Asia/Tokyo.
6. Display the processing results in a table format.

Pipeline Operations

Operation Type	Description	Parameters
process	Executes a series of operations on the dataset.	steps: A dict of operations (e.g., load, select, dump) to apply.
concat	Concatenates multiple datasets vertically or horizontally.	sources: List of stages to concat. params.how: vertical, vertical_relaxed, horizontal, diagonal, align, etc.
join	Joins multiple datasets using keys.	sources: List of stages to join. params.key: Column(s) used for joining. params.how: inner, left, right, full, semi, anti, cross. params.coalesce: bool

Sample YAML (rules/test.yaml):

title: 'test'
description: 'test pipelines'
version: '0.1.0'
author: 'John Doe <[e-mail]>'
stages:
  load_stage:
    type: process
    steps:
      load:

  stage_1:
    type: process
    source: load_stage
    steps:
      select:
        colnames: 
          - TimeCreated
          - PayloadData1

  stage_2:
    type: process
    source: load_stage
    steps:
      select:
        colnames: 
          - TimeCreated
          - PayloadData2

  merge_stage:
    type: join
    sources:
      - stage_1
      - stage_2
    params:
      how: full
      key: TimeCreated
      coalesce: True
  
  stage_3:
    type: process
    source: merge_stage
    steps:
      showtable:

Note: Step Duplication

Quilt supports YAML configurations with duplicate keys in steps.

stages:
test_stage:
  steps:
    load:
    renamecol: # duplicate key
      from: old_col1
      to: new_col1
    renamecol: # duplicate key
      from: old_col2
      to: new_col2
    renamecol: # duplicate key
      from: old_col3
      to: new_col3
    show:

Internally, these keys are handled as:

renamecol
renamecol_
renamecol__

This ensures that each steps is treated as a distinct operation in the pipeline.

Installation

from PyPI

$ pip install qsv

from GitHub Releases

A Nuitka-compiled binary version is also available.

Ubuntu

$ chmod +x ./qsv
$ ./qsv {{options...}}

Windows

> qsv.exe {{options...}}

License

Quilter-CSV is released under the MIT License.