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sample

The sample command selects a random sample of rows from a CSV file.

Syntax​

qsv sample <num_samples> [<input_file>]

Description​

The sample command randomly selects a specified number of rows from the input file (or stdin if no file is specified) and outputs them to stdout.

Options​

  • None specific to sample

Exit Codes​

  • 0: Sampling successful
  • Non-zero: An error occurred

Examples​

Basic Usage​

Get a random sample of 5 rows from a CSV file:

qsv sample 5 olympics2024.csv | qsv table

Output:

Rank  Country   Country Code  Gold  Silver  Bronze  Total
23    Hungary   HUN           6     7       7       20
45    Colombia  COL           0     4       1       5
62    Portugal  POR           1     1       2       4
19    Poland    POL           4     5       5       14
56    India     IND           1     2       4       7

Common Use Cases​

  • Quickly inspecting large datasets
  • Creating smaller test datasets for development or testing
  • Reducing dataset size for faster processing or analysis

Tips​

  • Use sample to get a representative subset of your data
  • Combine with other qsv commands for more complex data processing pipelines

See Also​

  • head - for getting the first few rows of your data
  • tail - for getting the last few rows of your data