1.2 KiB
fexcel
A simple command-line tool to sanitize invalid UTF-8 sequences from input streams.
Overview
fexcel reads data from stdin, replaces any invalid UTF-8 sequences with the Unicode replacement character (<28>), and writes the sanitized output to stdout. This is particularly useful when working with files that may contain mixed or invalid encodings, such as Windows-exported CSV files.
Installation
mise run install # or
cargo install --path . --force
Or build from source:
cargo build --release
The binary will be available at target/release/fexcel.
Usage
Use fexcel as a pipe filter to clean input before passing it to tools that require valid UTF-8:
cat my-windows-exported.csv | fexcel | csvlens
Without fexcel, tools like csvlens may fail with invalid UTF-8 errors. By piping through fexcel first, you can safely view and process files with encoding issues.
Additional Examples
Clean a file and save the output:
cat problematic-file.txt | fexcel > cleaned-file.txt
Use with any UTF-8 sensitive tool:
cat messy-data.log | fexcel | grep "pattern"
License
See LICENSE file for details.