CSVFiddle for querying CSVs with SQL
When working with CSV files, I often want to query them with SQL. There are a lot of tools that make it technically possible to do this, but they fall short on user experience in a couple ways.
What I want is an experience resembling the BigQuery SQL Editor, but optimized for quick import of CSV data. I want to generate links to share my queries with anyone on the Internet.
So, I built a quick hack called CSVFiddle:
The name is inspired by JSFiddle, a popular tool to write HTML/CSS/Javascript snippets in a sandbox environment. CSVFiddle is like JSFiddle for CSV/SQL.
You can import data, write SQL, then instantly share it with anyone. Everything runs 100% in-browser, so the data you import and the queries you write are never sent to a web server.
Building CSVFiddle was a good opportunity to use technologies like NextJS and DuckDB, both of which have been a phenomenal experience to work with. In its current state, I wouldn’t describe CSVFiddle as a “robust” tool; reliably parsing CSVs alone would require more configuration options.
Still, I’m putting this out there in case it’s useful to someone. If you’re using CSVFiddle for anything, I’d love to hear from you.
June 2022