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Interactive Shell

Start TabDat without arguments to enter the interactive shell:

tabdat

You are greeted by the tabdat> prompt.

Shell Features

Context-Aware Autocomplete

TabDat provides real-time inline completions powered by prompt-toolkit: - Commands: Typing reg suggests regress. - Active Columns: Typing summarize a autocompletes column names matching a from the currently loaded dataset. - Options: Typing , r autocompletes options like , robust or , replace.

Syntax Highlighting

Commands, keywords, strings, variable names, and SQL blocks are styled with terminal colors for readability.

Command History

  • Use Up and Down arrow keys to cycle through previous commands.
  • Press Ctrl+R for reverse-i-search across session history.
  • History is saved in ~/.tabdat_history across sessions.

Multi-Line SQL

TabDat supports multi-line SQL queries using triple quotes:

tabdat> sql """
......> select sex, avg(bmi) as mean_bmi, count(*) as count
......> from active
......> group by sex
......> order by mean_bmi desc
......> """

In-App Help

Access documentation for any command directly within the REPL:

tabdat> help summarize
tabdat> help regress
tabdat> help did

Run help with no arguments to list all available topics.

Exiting the Shell

To exit the interactive session, type exit or quit, or press Ctrl+D.