webcsv: Simple CSV Web Viewer

Simple python web app to view CSV files on the browser. The CSV data will be rendered as an HTML table. This app uses Flask & Gunicorn with ryt/runapp for deployment.

Test/Development Server

Run the app with the default Flask development server on port 5000.

python3 webcsv.py

Note: webcsv has been tested & deployed with Flask version 2.2.5, Python version 3.7.3, and Gunicorn version 21.2.0. Your versions may or may not be compatible so double check your versions if you experience any issues.

Deployment Instructions (with runapp)

Note: these instructions are only necessary if you're using runapp to deploy the application. If you're using gunicorn by itself or are using a custom deployment process, you may skip these instructions.

Create & start a deployment, gunicorn (daemon/process):

cd webcsv
runapp start

Stop deployment/app process:

runapp stop

Check running deployment/app process:

runapp list

Restart deployment/app process:

runapp restart

If app is not running after restart, check & re-deploy:

runapp list
runapp start

Directory Listing Options

By default, webcsv will show a directory listing of any (accessible) directory on the system that is passed to the f parameter in the url. To limit the path and set an absoltue parent directory, use the limitpath option in config.py.

'limitpath' : '/home/user/project/'

Additional Rendering Options

Markdown, RST (reStructuredText), and HTML files can additionally be parsed and rendered using the following options: parse_markdown, parse_rst, and parse_html.

If you enable the parse_markdown option by setting it to True, you'll need to install the marko library to your python libraries.

$ pip3 install marko

If you enable the parse_rst option by setting it to True, you'll need to install the docutils library to your python libraries.

$ pip3 install docutils

Port Notes

1. When deployed with Gunicorn, the app uses port 8002 by default. You can change this by editing runapp.conf as well as webcsv.html.

2. Flask uses the port 5000 by default for it's development server. Make sure to access the app using that port whenever you're running the flask server.

Open From Folder

To use webcsv in a particular folder locally, copy webcsv.html to that folder and open it. You'll automatically be redirected to webcsv with the path set to that folder.

As mentioned above, you can change the port and path in webcsv.html if you have a custom port and path for the app.

Mac App Notes

You can also create a Mac application named webcsv.app to use as the default app to open CSV files with using the following AppleScript. If you change the default port and/or want to use a different browser, make sure to modify the script as well.

on open (csvFiles)
	set filePath to POSIX path of item 1 of csvFiles
	tell application "Google Chrome"
		activate
		open location "http://127.0.0.1:8002/webcsv?f=" & filePath
	end tell
end open

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_{Copyright © 2024 Ray Mentose.}