OpenRefine is a desktop application for exploring, cleaning and transforming datasets. It is particularly useful when information contains inconsistent spelling, duplicated values, mixed formats or other problems that make further analysis difficult.
The application presents tabular data in a spreadsheet-like interface, but its workflow is built around operations that can be applied to many records at once. Users can filter and facet datasets, examine distributions and apply transformations to selected groups of rows.
OpenRefine is also useful for reconciling local records against external reference sources. This allows data to be connected to established identifiers and helps resolve inconsistent names or descriptions.
Projects retain a history of transformations, making it possible to inspect, undo and replay operations. The application runs locally, with its interface accessed through a web browser. This arrangement allows users to work interactively with datasets without uploading them to a hosted service.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Import tabular and structured data from CSV, TSV, JSON, XML and other formats.
- Explore datasets through text, numeric, date and custom facets.
- Filter records to focus transformations on selected subsets.
- Detect similar text values using clustering algorithms.
- Merge inconsistent categories, names and other values.
- Transform fields using General Refine Expression Language (GREL).
- Split, join, normalize and reorganize columns and records.
- Reconcile local data against external reference services.
- Extend records using information from external data sources.
- Maintain an undo and redo history of changes.
- Extract and reuse operation histories for repeatable cleaning tasks.
- Export cleaned data into supported tabular and structured formats.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine
Support:
Developer: OpenRefine community
License: BSD 3-Clause ‘New’ or ‘Revised’ License
OpenRefine is written in Java. Learn Java with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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