Command line utility for reading tabular data

Question

I am looking for a command line utility that would allow me to quickly investigate structure of a large dataset. Right now I am doing it by using: head -n 2 dataset but the problem is that the width of the output is larger than width of my terminal/screen.

What would be perfect is a tool to horizontally scroll through the file (by a fixed number of columns), the same way I can scroll through file opened in Vim by using Ctrl+f/Ctrl+b.

Answer 1

I would recommend less

You can browse in any direction With

less -S logfile

-S or --chop-long-lines

          Causes lines longer than the screen width to be chopped rather than folded.  That is, the portion of a long line that does not fit in the screen width is not shown.  The default is to fold long lines; that is, display
          the remainder on the next line.

For horizontal movement

ESC-) or RIGHTARROW

          Scroll horizontally right N characters, default half the screen width (see the -# option).  If a number N is specified, it becomes the default for future RIGHTARROW and LEFTARROW commands.  While the text is scrolled,
          it acts as though the -S option (chop lines) were in effect.

ESC-( or LEFTARROW

          Scroll horizontally left N characters, default half the screen width (see the -# option).  If a number N is specified, it becomes the default for future RIGHTARROW and LEFTARROW commands.