Print structured list to command-line (tree like)

Question

If I have a text-file with a structured list like this:

#linux
##audio
###sequenzer
####qtractor
###drummachine
####hydrogen

##scores
###lilypond
###musescore

##bureau
###kalender
####calcurse
###todo
####tudu

How can I print it tree like to the command-line?

linux/
├── audio
│   ├── drummachine
│   │   └── hydrogen
│   └── sequenzer
│       └── qtractor
├── bureau
│   ├── kalender
│   │   └── calcurse
│   └── todo
│       └── tudu
└── scores
    ├── lilypond
    └── musescore

Is there an application that I'm missing out?

pLumo · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-04T10:08:13.250

3

Use awk to convert the structure to "normal" pathes.

linux/
linux/audio/
linux/audio/sequenzer/
linux/audio/sequenzer/qtractor/
linux/audio/drummachine/
linux/audio/drummachine/hydrogen/
...

Then you can use tree --fromfile . to read it:

convert_structure.awk:

{
    delete path_arr
    path = ""
    level=match($0,/[^#]/)-1
    sub(/^#*/,"")
    p[level]=$0
    for (l=1;l<=level;l++) {
        path_arr[l]=p[l]
        path = path p[l] "/"
    }
    print path
}

RUN:

awk -f convert_structure.awk structure.txt | tree --fromfile . --noreport

OUTPUT:

.
└── linux
    ├── audio
    │   ├── drummachine
    │   │   └── hydrogen
    │   └── sequenzer
    │       └── qtractor
    ├── bureau
    │   ├── kalender
    │   │   └── calcurse
    │   └── todo
    │       └── tudu
    └── scores
        ├── lilypond
        └── musescore

Notes:

Check here if your implementation of awk does not support delete of an array.
This works fine with pathes that include spaces, but obviously won't work with pathes inlcuding newlines.

edited Feb 04 '22 at 10:08

answered Feb 04 '22 at 09:29

pLumo

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You can always use `split("", path_arr)` if `delete path_arr` is not supported (`delete` is standard, it's passing it an array as a whole that used not to be). – Stéphane Chazelas Feb 04 '22 at 10:05
I'm on cygwin where `tree --version` outputs `tree v1.7.0 (c) 1996 - 2014 by Steve Baker, Thomas Moore, Francesc Rocher, Florian Sesser, Kyosuke Tokoro` and it doesn't have a `--fromfile` option (or any other that'd let it take such input as far as I can see). What `tree` version are you using? – Ed Morton Feb 04 '22 at 23:14
-> `tree v1.8.0` – pLumo Feb 05 '22 at 08:32
This goes a bit beyond the original question, but is there a way of keeping the order of the *scructered-list* rather then getting an *alphabetical order* as if it was a `directory-list`? – nath Feb 10 '22 at 03:12

Print structured list to command-line (tree like)

1 Answers1