Python wheel files are zip files and can be viewed with VisiData

[frosencrantz]

For example:

vd -n -f zip https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/d0/e2/dfb2f2a436cda0f0f33dcd4582168010d2536948e90c4549d4b158952116/visidata-2.10.1-py3-none-any.whl

This command uses the builtin VisiData support for unzip-http to allow you to quickly view what files are in a Python Wheel, without having to download the whole file first.

I think this could be combined with @ajkerrigan's plugin for PyPi: https://dev.to/ajkerrigan/data-exploration-quick-wins-with-visidata-13lh/

[ajkerrigan]

Yeah it sure can! I'm realizing I didn't mention this shortcut I have in my .visidatarc that avoids the need for command line options:

from visidata import vd

vd.open_whl = vd.open_zip                                                                                                                                                   

And if you couple it with a command to open a new sheet using the cell value as a path...

from visidata import BaseSheet

BaseSheet.addCommand(' zo', 'open-cell-path', 'vd.push(vd.openSource(cursorCell.value))')

Then you have an even handier PyPI remote wheel browser 👍

Edit: Thanks to @anjakefala's addition in #1514 , the native zo keybinding does this. No need for custom shenanigans :).

[frosencrantz]

Thanks for sharing @ajkerrigan! I wouldn't mind all of these being added to base VisiData!

And I would add one more format har files are also json. They have more structure, but that is a starting point.

[geekscrapy]

@ajkerrigan thanks for these snippets! Maybe we could get the IP commands baked in as they are stdlib stuff!

Also love the open-cell-as, maybe this could also be baked in and assigned gzo?

[saulpw]

Hm, should zo be open-cell-as or open-cell-file? What are you people putting in your cells :)

[geekscrapy]

This is v. true @saulpw ! I often have links (when loaded a table from an html page), or embedded json, or even a filename from grep -h output! so for me, I wouldn't consistently need one over another. Maybe it should be open-cell-as. I see it more of a powertool anyway so someone should know more about what they are doing than a casual user that opens a flat dataset?

[frosencrantz]

I would use both also.

[frosencrantz]

There are a few other file formats that are based on zip format according to Wikipedia:

• jar
  • war
  • ear
  • rar
• Office Open XML
  • docx
  • docm
• odf (Open Document)
• xpi (Mozilla Extension)
• .lottie files

Also, .har files are JSON based.

It is not perfect showing these files as their base types, but it is more useful than if VisiData completely ignored the format.

@saulpw what do you think?

[saulpw]

Hmm...there are many dozens or hundreds of these formats, I'm guessing. What if we included it in formats.jsonl, and then generated this list from that?

[frosencrantz]

@saulpw would the generated list be installed with VisiData? That is reasonable. Even though they are zip or json formats, they have additional structure. It would be great if VisiData knew the additional structure, but having only the base format is better than nothing.