tj/histo

Histo lets you draw charts right inside your terminal window. Instead of exporting data to a spreadsheet or a separate graphing application, you pipe numbers directly into it and get an instant visual histogram. It handles both one-off batches of numbers and live, streaming data that updates over time. The tool reads data through a standard input method, meaning you just send it a list of numbers and it draws the chart. For static data, you can point it at a text file. For live data, you can stream a continuous feed of numbers into it, and the chart will update in real time until you tell it to stop. It also intelligently resizes itself to fit your terminal window, no matter how wide or tall you make it, and handles negative values by displaying them as shaded blocks. Anyone who works in a command-line interface and wants a quick visual sense of their data would find this useful. The README suggests practical examples like monitoring CPU usage, tracking memory consumption, or watching system load averages. A developer checking server health could stream live system metrics into the tool to watch for spikes, or an analyst could use it to spot patterns in a simple list of numbers without leaving the terminal. One notable thing about the project is that it is written in C and includes a simple C API for integration into other tools. This makes it lightweight and fast, suitable for being built into larger command-line utilities rather than just being used as a standalone program. The README is fairly sparse beyond the basic usage examples and screenshots, so deeper technical configuration details are minimal.