# xan input ```txt Read unusually formatted CSV data. This means being able to process CSV data with peculiar quoting rules using --quote or --no-quoting, or dealing with character escaping, typically files with backslash escaping, with --escape. This command is also able to skip metadata headers sometimes found at the beginning of CSV-adjacent formats with the -L/--skip-lines, -U/--skip-until & -W/--skip-while flags. Finally you can also use this command to handle compressed streams and well-known CSV-adjacent format streams (note that it is not necessary to use `xan input` if the file is already on disk and has the expected extension, as xan knows how to deal with some of those formats out-of-the-box). A notable exception to this is GFF files that require `xan input` to be read. Usage: xan input [options] [] formatting options: --tabs Same as -d '\t', i.e. use tabulations as delimiter. --quote The quote character to use. [default: "] --escape The escape character to use. When not specified, quotes are escaped by doubling them. --no-quoting Disable quoting completely. --comment Skip records starting with this character. --trim Whether to trim cell values. header skipping options: -L, --skip-lines Skip the first lines of the file. -U, --skip-until Skip lines until matches. -W, --skip-while Skip lines while matches. CSV-adjacent data format options: --vcf Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a VCF ("Variant Call Format") file from bioinformatics. This is not needed when using xan on a file with `.vcf` extension because xan already knows how to handle them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Call_Format --gtf Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a GTF ("Gene Transfer Format") file from bioinformatics. This is not needed when using xan on a file with `.gtf` or `.gff2` extension because xan already knows how to handle them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_transfer_format --gff Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a GFF ("General Feature Format") file from bioinformatics. This flag is implied if target file has the `.gff` or `.gff3` extension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_feature_format --sam Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a SAM ("Sequence Alignment Map") file from bioinformatics. This is not needed when using xan on a file with `.sam` extension because xan already knows how to handle them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_(file_format) --bed Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a BED ("Browser Extensible Data") file from bioinformatics. This is not needed when using xan on a file with `.bed` extension because xan already knows how to handle them. Note that the file will be considered as tab-delimited, not space-delimited! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BED_(file_format) --cdx Indicate that the given stream should be understood as a CDX index file from web archives. This is not needed when using xan on a file with `.cdx` extension because xan already knows how to handle them. https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/cdx-format/cdx-2015/ compression options: --gzip Read a gzip-compressed stream or gzip-compressed file without the standard `.gz` extension. --zstd Read a zstd-compressed stream or zstd-compressed file without the standard `.zst` extension. Common options: -h, --help Display this message -o, --output Write output to instead of stdout. -d, --delimiter The field delimiter for reading CSV data. Must be a single character. ```