Explore and Filter Large Datasets

When you have a JSON array with hundreds or thousands of records, manually scrolling through raw JSON is impractical. The Data Explorer gives you a spreadsheet-like interface for rapid data inspection.

🚩 The Scenario

You have a large dataset of 5,000 user records exported from a database:

[
  {"id": 1, "name": "Alice", "department": "Engineering", "salary": 95000, "active": true},
  {"id": 2, "name": "Bob", "department": "Marketing", "salary": 72000, "active": false},
  ...
]

You need to quickly find all active Engineering employees earning over $90,000.

🛠️ Step-by-Step

1. Navigate to the Editor (home page).
2. Upload your JSON file (drag & drop, file picker, or paste).
3. Switch to the Explore & Filter section in the workspace carousel.
4. You'll see your data rendered as a paginated table.

🔍 Applying Filters

5. Click the Filter button to open the filter panel.
6. Add your conditions:
   • Field: active | Operator: equals | Value: true
   • Field: department | Operator: equals | Value: Engineering
   • Field: salary | Operator: gt | Value: 90000
7. The table updates instantly to show only matching records.

📊 Sorting Results

8. Click the salary column header to sort descending — see the highest earners first.
9. Click again to reverse the sort order.

📥 Exporting Results

10. With filters active, click the Download button.
11. Choose JSON or CSV format — only the filtered results are exported.

💡 Advanced Techniques

Column Inspection

Click any column header's info icon to see:

• Data type distribution (how many strings vs numbers vs nulls).
• Unique value count.
• Min/max values for numeric columns.
• Sample values for quick reference.

Regex Filtering

For complex text patterns, use the regex operator:

• Field: email | Operator: regex | Value: @company\.com$

This finds all users with a company email address.

Combined with Transform Builder

After filtering your data, switch to the Tools panel and open the Transform Builder to reshape just the filtered subset.

⚡ Performance

• Pagination: Records are paginated (default: 50 per page) to keep the UI fast.
• Deferred rendering: Search and filter use deferred values to avoid blocking the UI.
• Web Workers: Data parsing happens in a background thread.

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🚀 Try it now

Upload a JSON array in the Editor and switch to Explore & Filter to start browsing your data as a table.