[linux] Linux command to print directory structure in the form of a tree

Is there any linux command that I can call from a Bash script that will print the directory structure in the form of a tree, e.g.,

folder1
   a.txt
   b.txt
folder2
   folder3

This question is related to linux command-line

The answer is


Since it was a successful comment, I am adding it as an answer:
with files:

 find . | sed -e "s/[^-][^\/]*\//  |/g" -e "s/|\([^ ]\)/|-\1/" 

To add Hassou's solution to your .bashrc, try:

alias lst='ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e '"'"'s/:$//'"'"' -e '"'"'s/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g'"'"' -e '"'"'s/^/   /'"'"' -e '"'"'s/-/|/'"'"

Adding the below function in bashrc lets you run the command without any arguments which displays the current directory structure and when run with any path as argument, will display the directory structure of that path. This avoids the need to switch to a particular directory before running the command.

function tree() {
    find ${1:-.} | sed -e "s/[^-][^\/]*\//  |/g" -e "s/|\([^ ]\)/|-\1/"
}

This works in gitbash too.

Source: Comment from @javasheriff here


You can also use the combination of find and awk commands to print the directory tree. For details, please refer to "How to print a multilevel tree directory structure using the linux find and awk combined commands"

find . -type d | awk -F'/' '{ 
depth=3;
offset=2;
str="|  ";
path="";
if(NF >= 2 && NF < depth + offset) {
    while(offset < NF) {
        path = path "|  ";
        offset ++;
    }
    print path "|-- "$NF;
}}'

Since I was not too happy with the output of other (non-tree) answers (see my comment at Hassou's answer), I tried to mimic trees output a bit more.

It's similar to the answer of Robert but the horizontal lines do not all start at the beginning, but where there are supposed to start. Had to use perl though, but in my case, on the system where I don't have tree, perl is available.

ls -aR | grep ":$" | perl -pe 's/:$//;s/[^-][^\/]*\//    /g;s/^    (\S)/+-- \1/;s/(^    |    (?= ))/¦   /g;s/    (\S)/+-- \1/'

Output (shortened):

.
+-- fd
+-- net
¦   +-- dev_snmp6
¦   +-- nfsfs
¦   +-- rpc
¦   ¦   +-- auth.unix.ip
¦   +-- stat
¦   +-- vlan
+-- ns
+-- task
¦   +-- 1310
¦   ¦   +-- net
¦   ¦   ¦   +-- dev_snmp6
¦   ¦   ¦   +-- rpc
¦   ¦   ¦   ¦   +-- auth.unix.gid
¦   ¦   ¦   ¦   +-- auth.unix.ip
¦   ¦   ¦   +-- stat
¦   ¦   ¦   +-- vlan
¦   ¦   +-- ns

Suggestions to avoid the superfluous vertical lines are welcome :-)

I still like Ben's solution in the comment of Hassou's answer very much, without the (not perfectly correct) lines it's much cleaner. For my use case I additionally removed the global indentation and added the option to also ls hidden files, like so:

ls -aR | grep ":$" | sed -e 's/:$//' -e 's/[^-][^\/]*\//  /g'

Output (shortened even more):

.
  fd
  net
    dev_snmp6
    nfsfs
    rpc
      auth.unix.ip
    stat
    vlan
  ns

I'm prettifying the output of @Hassou's answer with:

ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e 's/:$//' -e 's/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g' -e 's/-/+/' -e '$s/+/+/'

This is much like the output of tree now:

.
+-pkcs11
+-pki
+---ca-trust
+-----extracted
+-------java
+-------openssl
+-------pem
+-----source
+-------anchors
+-profile.d
+-ssh

You can also make an alias of it:

alias ltree=$'ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e \'s/:$//\' -e \'s/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g\' -e \'s/-/+/\' -e \'$s/+/+/\''

BTW, tree is not available in some environment, like MinGW. So the alternate is helpful.


You can use this one:

ls -R | grep ":$" | sed -e 's/:$//' -e 's/[^-][^\/]*\//--/g' -e 's/^/   /' -e 's/-/|/'

It will show a graphical representation of the current sub-directories without files in a few seconds, e.g. in /var/cache/:

   .
   |-apache2
   |---mod_cache_disk
   |-apparmor
   |-apt
   |---archives
   |-----partial
   |-apt-xapian-index
   |---index.1
   |-dbconfig-common
   |---backups
   |-debconf

Source


This command works to display both folders and files.

find . | sed -e "s/[^-][^\/]*\// |/g" -e "s/|\([^ ]\)/|-\1/"

Example output:

.
 |-trace.pcap
 |-parent
 | |-chdir1
 | | |-file1.txt
 | |-chdir2
 | | |-file2.txt
 | | |-file3.sh
 |-tmp
 | |-json-c-0.11-4.el7_0.x86_64.rpm

Source: Comment from @javasheriff here. Its submerged as a comment and posting it as answer helps users spot it easily.