tree(1) General Commands Manual tree(1)
NAME
tree - list contents of directories in a tree-like format.
SYNOPSIS
tree [-acdfghilnpqrstuvxACDFJQNSUX] [-L level [-R]] [-H baseHREF] [-T
title] [-o filename] [-P pattern] [-I pattern] [--gitignore]
[--gitfile[=]file] [--matchdirs] [--metafirst] [--ignore-case]
[--nolinks] [--hintro[=]file] [--houtro[=]file] [--inodes] [--device]
[--sort[=]name] [--dirsfirst] [--filesfirst] [--filelimit[=]#] [--si]
[--du] [--prune] [--charset[=]X] [--timefmt[=]format] [--fromfile]
[--fromtabfile] [--fflinks] [--info] [--infofile[=]file] [--noreport]
[--hyperlink] [--scheme[=]schema] [--authority[=]hostname] [--opt-
toggle] [--version] [--help] [--] [directory ...]
DESCRIPTION
Tree is a recursive directory listing program that produces a depth
indented listing of files, which is colorized ala dircolors if the
LS_COLORS environment variable is set and output is to tty. With no
arguments, tree lists the files in the current directory. When
directory arguments are given, tree lists all the files and/or
directories found in the given directories each in turn. Upon
completion of listing all files/directories found, tree returns the
total number of files and/or directories listed.
By default, when a symbolic link is encountered, the path that the
symbolic link refers to is printed after the name of the link in the
format:
name -> real-path
If the `-l' option is given and the symbolic link refers to an actual
directory, then tree will follow the path of the symbolic link as if it
were a real directory.
OPTIONS
Tree understands the following command line switches:
LISTING OPTIONS
-a All files are printed. By default tree does not print hidden
files (those beginning with a dot `.'). In no event does tree
print the file system constructs `.' (current directory) and
`..' (previous directory).
-d List directories only.
-l Follows symbolic links if they point to directories, as if they
were directories. Symbolic links that will result in recursion
are avoided when detected.
-f Prints the full path prefix for each file.
-x Stay on the current file-system only. Ala find -xdev.
-L level
Max display depth of the directory tree.
-R Recursively cross down the tree each level directories (see -L
option), and at each level outputting to a file named
00Tree.html (ala -o).
-P pattern
List only those files that match the wild-card pattern. You may
have multiple -P options. Note: you must use the -a option to
also consider those files beginning with a dot `.' for matching.
Valid wildcard operators are `*' (any zero or more characters),
`**` (any zero or more characters as well as null /'s, i.e. /**/
may match a single /), `?' (any single character), `[...]' (any
single character listed between brackets (optional - (dash) for
character range may be used: ex: [A-Z]), and `[^...]' (any
single character not listed in brackets) and `|' separates
alternate patterns. A '/' at the end of the pattern matches
directories, but not files.
-I pattern
Do not list those files that match the wild-card pattern. You
may have multiple -I options. See -P above for information on
wildcard patterns.
--gitignore
Uses git .gitignore files for filtering files and directories.
Also uses $GIT_DIR/info/exclude if present.
--gitfile[=]file
Use file explicitly as a gitignore file.
--ignore-case
If a match pattern is specified by the -P or -I option, this
will cause the pattern to match without regard to the case of
each letter.
--matchdirs
If a match pattern is specified by the -P option, this will
cause the pattern to be applied to directory names (in addition
to filenames). In the event of a match on the directory name,
matching is disabled for the directory's contents. If the
--prune option is used, empty folders that match the pattern
will not be pruned.
--metafirst
Print the meta-data information at the beginning of the line
rather than after the indentation lines.
--prune
Makes tree prune empty directories from the output, useful when
used in conjunction with -P or -I. See BUGS AND NOTES below for
more information on this option.
--info Prints file comments found in .info files. See .INFO FILES
below for more information on the format of .info files.
--infofile[=]file
Use file explicitly as a info file.
--noreport
Omits printing of the file and directory report at the end of
the tree listing.
--charset[=]charset
Set the character set to use when outputting HTML and for line
drawing.
--filelimit[=]#
Do not descend directories that contain more than # entries.
--timefmt[=]format
Prints (implies -D) and formats the date according to the format
string which uses the strftime(3) syntax.
-o filename
Send output to filename.
FILE OPTIONS
-q Print non-printable characters in filenames as question marks
instead of the default.
-N Print non-printable characters as is instead of as escaped octal
numbers.
-Q Quote the names of files in double quotes.
-p Print the file type and permissions for each file (as per ls
-l).
-u Print the username, or UID # if no username is available, of the
file.
-g Print the group name, or GID # if no group name is available, of
the file.
-s Print the size of each file in bytes along with the name.
-h Print the size of each file but in a more human readable way,
e.g. appending a size letter for kilobytes (K), megabytes (M),
gigabytes (G), terabytes (T), petabytes (P) and exabytes (E).
--si Like -h but use SI units (powers of 1000) instead.
--du For each directory report its size as the accumulation of sizes
of all its files and sub-directories (and their files, and so
on). The total amount of used space is also given in the final
report (like the 'du -c' command.) This option requires tree to
read the entire directory tree before emitting it, see BUGS AND
NOTES below. Implies -s.
-D Print the date of the last modification time or if -c is used,
the last status change time for the file listed.
-F Append a `/' for directories, a `=' for socket files, a `*' for
executable files, a `>' for doors (Solaris) and a `|' for
FIFO's, as per ls -F
--inodes
Prints the inode number of the file or directory
--device
Prints the device number to which the file or directory belongs
SORTING OPTIONS
-v Sort the output by version.
-t Sort the output by last modification time instead of
alphabetically.
-c Sort the output by last status change instead of alphabetically.
Modifies the -D option (if used) to print the last status change
instead of modification time.
-U Do not sort. Lists files in directory order. Disables
--dirsfirst.
-r Sort the output in reverse order. This is a meta-sort that
alters the above sorts. This option is disabled when -U is
used.
--dirsfirst
List directories before files. This is a meta-sort that alters
the above sorts. This option is disabled when -U is used.
--filesfirst
List files before directories. This is a meta-sort that alters
the above sorts. This option is disabled when -U is used.
--sort[=]type
Sort the output by type instead of name. Possible values are:
ctime (-c), mtime (-t), size, version (-v) or none (-U).
GRAPHICS OPTIONS
-i Makes tree not print the indentation lines, useful when used in
conjunction with the -f option. Also removes as much whitespace
as possible when used with the -J or -X options.
-A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation
lines.
-S Turn on CP437 line graphics (useful when using Linux console
mode fonts). This option is now equivalent to `--charset=IBM437'
and may eventually be depreciated.
-n Turn colorization off always, over-ridden by the -C option,
however overrides CLICOLOR_FORCE if present.
-C Turn colorization on always, using built-in color defaults if
the LS_COLORS or TREE_COLORS environment variables are not set.
Useful to colorize output to a pipe.
XML/JSON/HTML/HYPERLINKS OPTIONS
-X Turn on XML output. Outputs the directory tree as an XML
formatted file.
-J Turn on JSON output. Outputs the directory tree as a JSON
formatted array.
-H baseHREF
Turn on HTML output, including HTTP references. Useful for ftp
sites. baseHREF gives the base ftp location when using HTML
output. That is, the local directory may be `/local/ftp/pub',
but it must be referenced as
`ftp://hostname.organization.domain/pub' (baseHREF should be
`ftp://hostname.organization.domain'). Hint: don't use ANSI
lines with this option, and don't give more than one directory
in the directory list. If you wish to use colors via CSS style-
sheet, use the -C option in addition to this option to force
color output.
--hintro[=]file
Use file as the HTML intro in place of the default one. Use an
empty file or /dev/null to eliminate the intro altogether.
--houtro[=]file
Use file as the HTML outro in place of the default one. Use an
empty file or /dev/null to eliminate the outro altogether.
-T title
Sets the title and H1 header string in HTML output mode.
--nolinks
Turns off hyperlinks in HTML output.
--hyperlink
Enable OSC 8 terminal hyperlinks for terminals that support
them. See BUGS AND NOTES below.
--scheme[=]schema
Sets the schema used in the OSC 8 hyperlinks. The default schema
is 'file://'. If the schema omits the colon (:), then :// will
be appended to the schema.
--authority[=]hostname|authority
Sets the authority (hostname) to use for the OSC 8 hyperlinks.
By default the local hostname of the machine as returned by
gethostname() is used as the authority. A dot (.) or a set of
""'s, sans '=', (i.e. the empty string) can be used to indicate
a null authority.
INPUT OPTIONS
--fromfile
Reads a directory listing from a file rather than the file-
system. Paths provided on the command line are files to read
from rather than directories to search. The dot (.) directory
indicates that tree should read paths from standard input. NOTE:
this is only suitable for reading the output of a program such
as find, not 'tree -fi' as symlinks are not distinguished from
files that simply contain ' -> ' as part of the filename unless
the --fflinks option is used.
--fromtabfile
Like --fromfile, tree reads a directory tree from a text file
where the files are tab indented in a tree like format to
indicate the directory nesting level.
--fflinks
Processes symbolic link information found in a file, as from the
output of 'tree -fi --noreport'. Only the first occurrence of
the string ' -> ' is used to denote the separation of the
filename from the link.
MISC OPTIONS
--opt-toggle
Enables option "toggling". Turns on the ability to toggle
options such as -a, -h, etc. Useful to add to an alias when you
wish to disable options enabled in the alias.
--help Outputs a verbose usage listing.
--version
Outputs the version of tree.
-- Option processing terminator. No further options will be
processed after this.
.INFO FILES
.info files are similar to .gitignore files, if a .info file is found
while scanning a directory it is read and added to a stack of .info
information. Each file is composed of comments (lines starting with
hash marks (#),) or wild-card patterns which may match a file relative
to the directory the .info file is found in. If a file should match a
pattern, the tab indented comment that follows the pattern is used as
the file comment. A comment is terminated by a non-tab indented line.
Multiple patterns, each to a line, may share the same comment.
FILES
/etc/DIR_COLORS System color database.
~/.dircolors Users color database.
.gitignore Git exclusion file
$GIT_DIR/info/exclude Global git file exclusion list
.info File comment file
/usr/share/finfo/global_info Global file comment file
ENVIRONMENT
LS_COLORS Color information created by dircolors
TREE_COLORS Uses this for color information over LS_COLORS if it is
set.
TREE_CHARSET Character set for tree to use in HTML mode.
CLICOLOR Enables colorization even if TREE_COLORS or LS_COLORS is
not set.
CLICOLOR_FORCE Always enables colorization (effectively -C)
NO_COLOR Disable colorization (effectively -n) (see https://no-
color.org/)
LC_CTYPE Locale for filename output.
LC_TIME Locale for timefmt output, see strftime(3).
TZ Timezone for timefmt output, see strftime(3).
STDDATA_FD Enable the stddata feature, optionally set descriptor to
use.
AUTHOR
Steve Baker (Steve.Baker.llc@gmail.com)
HTML output hacked by Francesc Rocher (rocher@econ.udg.es)
Charsets and OS/2 support by Kyosuke Tokoro (NBG01720@nifty.ne.jp)
BUGS AND NOTES
Tree does not prune "empty" directories when the -P and -I options are
used by default. Use the --prune option.
The -h and --si options round to the nearest whole number unlike the ls
implementations which rounds up always.
Pruning files and directories with the -I, -P and --filelimit options
will lead to incorrect file/directory count reports.
The --prune and --du options cause tree to accumulate the entire tree
in memory before emitting it. For large directory trees this can cause
a significant delay in output and the use of large amounts of memory.
The timefmt expansion buffer is limited to a ridiculously large 255
characters. Output of time strings longer than this will be undefined,
but are guaranteed to not exceed 255 characters.
XML/JSON trees are not colored, which is a bit of a shame. The jq
utility can colorize the JSON however, just not the filenames by file-
type ala LS_COLORS.
OSC 8 hyperlinks may be poorly supported by your terminal. For my
version of Konsole it is necessary to set the schema to file: (no //)
and use a null authority. It may also be necessary to spend 3.5 hours
finding the option to turn on hyperlinks.
Probably more.
As of version 2.0.0, in Linux, tree will attempt to automatically
output a compact JSON tree on file descriptor 3 (what I call stddata,)
if present and the environment variable STDDATA_FD is defined or set to
a positive non-zero file descriptor value to use to output on. It is
hoped that some day a better Linux/Unix shell may take advantage of
this feature, though BSON would probably be a better format for this.
SEE ALSO
dircolors(1), ls(1), find(1), du(1), jq(1), strftime(3), gitignore(5)
Tree 2.2.0 tree(1)
tree 2.2.0 - Generated Sun Dec 1 15:27:11 CST 2024