Convert CSV to a Markdown table

Goal: Turn a .csv file into a formatted Markdown table for documentation.

Prerequisites: None, .csv files are parsed automatically.

Query

$ mq 'csv::csv_to_markdown_table' example.csv

Input (example.csv)

Name,Age,City
Alice,30,NYC
Bob,25,LA

Output

| Name | Age | City |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alice | 30 | NYC |
| Bob | 25 | LA |

Notes

• Columns aren’t padded to equal width. That’s still valid Markdown, and most renderers display it identically to a hand-aligned table.
• csv_to_markdown_table also accepts data already built in a query, either an array of dicts ([{"name": "Alice", "age": 30}], keys become headers) or an array of arrays with the header as the first row ([["name", "age"], ["Alice", 30]]).
• Quoted fields in the source CSV, including ones containing the delimiter, are unquoted correctly before being placed in the table.
• Going the other direction? See Convert a Markdown table to CSV.