TextQL is a command line SQL query engine designed to execute relational queries directly against structured text files, such as CSV and TSV, without requiring a database import. It functions as a relational text file analyzer and a CSV processor that treats plain text files as virtual tables for filtering, joining, and aggregating data.
The tool is built as a pipe-compatible data transformation utility, allowing it to process data from standard input and output formatted datasets. It enables relational joins across multiple files or directories within a single query to analyze relationships between different datasets.
The engine includes automatic data type detection for numeric, date, and time values to ensure accurate calculations and sorting. It also supports the loading of external shared libraries to extend the query language with custom mathematical, string, and aggregate functions. Results can be exported to files using configurable delimiters.