What tool to use to draw file tree diagram

Question

Given a file tree - a directory with directories in it etc  how would you write a script to create a diagram of the file-tree as a graphic file that I can embed in a word processor document  I prefer vector  SVG  EPS  EMF     files  The tool must run on Windows   but preferably cross-platform  The tool may be commercial but preferably free   Update 2012-02-20  The question was related to a documentation sub project  I had to explan where files  in particular resources and configuration files  reside  I ended up with using dos tree command  I both screen grabbed the result  for short folders  AND for longer folders I redirected to a text file  which I then edited  For example if a subfolder contained 20 similarly typed files that individually were not important to the point I was making  I left just two and replaced the rest with one     line  I then printed out the file to console again and screen grabbed it  Before screen grabbing I had to modify foreground color to black and background color to white  to look better and save ink in a document should that be printed   It is very surprising that there is no better tool for it  If I had time  I d write a Visio Extension or may be some command line that produces SVG  SVG being HTML5 substandard  would even allow painless inclusion into online documentation   Update 2017-10-17  I am sorry that this question was removed as not belonging to SO  So I have re-worded it  I need a script - not a WYSIWYG tool  So any scripting language or library is ok  So it is a code - writing question  and I believe belongs to SO

User · Answer

Why could you not just make a file structure on the Windows file system and populate it with your desired names, then use a screen grabber like HyperSnap (or the ubiquitous Alt-PrtScr) to capture a section of the Explorer window.

I did this when 'demoing' an internet application which would have collapsible sections, I just had to create files that looked like my desired entries.

HyperSnap gives JPGs at least (probably others but I've never bothered to investigate).

Or you could screen capture the icons +/- from Explorer and use them within MS Word Draw itself to do your picture, but I've never been able to get MS Word Draw to behave itself properly.

User · Answer

As promised  here is my Cairo version  I scripted it with Lua  using lfs to walk the directories  I love these little challenges  as they allow me to explore APIs I wanted to dig for quite some time    lfs and LuaCairo are both cross-platform  so it should work on other systems  tested on French WinXP Pro SP3    I made a first version drawing file names as I walked the tree  Advantage  no memory overhead  Inconvenience  I have to specify the image size beforehand  so listings are likely to be cut off   So I made this version  first walking the directory tree  storing it in a Lua table  Then  knowing the number of files  creating the canvas to fit  at least vertically  and drawing the names  You can easily switch between PNG rendering and SVG one  Problem with the latter  Cairo generates it at low level  drawing the letters instead of using SVG s text capability  Well  at least  it guarantees accurate rending even on systems without the font  But the files are bigger    Not really a problem if you compress it after  to have a  svgz file  Or it shouldn t be too hard to generate the SVG directly  I used Lua to generate SVG in the past   -- LuaFileSystem  lt http   www keplerproject org luafilesystem  gt  require lfs  -- LuaCairo  lt http   www dynaset org dogusanh  gt  require lcairo  local CAIRO   cairo   local PI   math pi local TWO PI   2   PI  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Graphviz  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Tecgraf  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine tcc  -- Ensure path ends with   dirToList   string gsub dirToList               1    print  Listing       dirToList  local fileNb   0  --  outputType    svg  outputType    png   -- dirToList must have a trailing slash function ListDirectory dirToList    local dirListing        for file in lfs dir dirToList  do     if file         and file        then       local fileAttr   lfs attributes dirToList    file        if fileAttr mode     directory  then         dirListing file    ListDirectory dirToList    file               else         dirListing file             end       fileNb   fileNb   1     end   end   return dirListing end  --dofile     Lua DumpObject lua   -- My own dump routine local dirListing   ListDirectory dirToList  --  print   n     DumpObject dirListing   print  Found      fileNb      files    --  os exit    -- Constants to change to adjust aspect local initialOffsetX   20 local offsetY   50 local offsetIncrementX   20 local offsetIncrementY   12 local iconOffset   10  local width   800 -- Still arbitrary local titleHeight   width 50 local height   offsetIncrementY    fileNb   1    titleHeight local outfile    CairoDirTree      outputType  local ctxSurface if outputType     svg  then   ctxSurface   cairo SvgSurface outfile  width  height  else   ctxSurface   cairo ImageSurface CAIRO FORMAT RGB24  width  height  end local ctx   cairo Context ctxSurface   -- Display a file name -- file is the file name to display -- offsetX is the indentation function DisplayFile file  bIsDir  offsetX    if bIsDir then     ctx save       ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD      ctx set source rgb 0 5  0 0  0 7    end    -- Display file name   ctx move to offsetX  offsetY    ctx show text file     if bIsDir then     ctx new sub path   -- Position independent of latest move to     -- Draw arc with absolute coordinates     ctx arc offsetX - iconOffset  offsetY - offsetIncrementY 3  offsetIncrementY 3  0  TWO PI      -- Violet disk     ctx set source rgb 0 7  0 0  0 7      ctx fill       ctx restore   -- Restore original settings   end    -- Increment line offset   offsetY   offsetY   offsetIncrementY end  -- Erase background  white  ctx set source rgb 1 0  1 0  1 0  ctx paint    --  ctx set line width 0 01   -- Draw in dark blue ctx set source rgb 0 0  0 0  0 3  ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD  ctx set font size titleHeight  ctx move to 5  titleHeight  -- Display title ctx show text  Directory tree of      dirToList   -- Select font for file names ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT NORMAL  ctx set font size 10  offsetY   titleHeight   2  -- Do the job function DisplayDirectory dirToList  offsetX    for k  v in pairs dirToList  do --  print k  v      if type v      table  then       -- Sub-directory       DisplayFile k  true  offsetX        DisplayDirectory v  offsetX   offsetIncrementX      else       DisplayFile k  false  offsetX      end   end end  DisplayDirectory dirListing  initialOffsetX   if outputType     svg  then     cairo show page ctx  else   --cairo surface write to png ctxSurface  outfile    ctxSurface write to png outfile  end  ctx destroy   ctxSurface destroy    print  Found      fileNb      files     Of course  you can change the styles  I didn t draw the connection lines  I didn t saw it as necessary  I might add them optionally later

User · Answer

As promised  here is my Cairo version  I scripted it with Lua  using lfs to walk the directories  I love these little challenges  as they allow me to explore APIs I wanted to dig for quite some time    lfs and LuaCairo are both cross-platform  so it should work on other systems  tested on French WinXP Pro SP3    I made a first version drawing file names as I walked the tree  Advantage  no memory overhead  Inconvenience  I have to specify the image size beforehand  so listings are likely to be cut off   So I made this version  first walking the directory tree  storing it in a Lua table  Then  knowing the number of files  creating the canvas to fit  at least vertically  and drawing the names  You can easily switch between PNG rendering and SVG one  Problem with the latter  Cairo generates it at low level  drawing the letters instead of using SVG s text capability  Well  at least  it guarantees accurate rending even on systems without the font  But the files are bigger    Not really a problem if you compress it after  to have a  svgz file  Or it shouldn t be too hard to generate the SVG directly  I used Lua to generate SVG in the past   -- LuaFileSystem  lt http   www keplerproject org luafilesystem  gt  require lfs  -- LuaCairo  lt http   www dynaset org dogusanh  gt  require lcairo  local CAIRO   cairo   local PI   math pi local TWO PI   2   PI  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Graphviz  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Tecgraf  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine tcc  -- Ensure path ends with   dirToList   string gsub dirToList               1    print  Listing       dirToList  local fileNb   0  --  outputType    svg  outputType    png   -- dirToList must have a trailing slash function ListDirectory dirToList    local dirListing        for file in lfs dir dirToList  do     if file         and file        then       local fileAttr   lfs attributes dirToList    file        if fileAttr mode     directory  then         dirListing file    ListDirectory dirToList    file               else         dirListing file             end       fileNb   fileNb   1     end   end   return dirListing end  --dofile     Lua DumpObject lua   -- My own dump routine local dirListing   ListDirectory dirToList  --  print   n     DumpObject dirListing   print  Found      fileNb      files    --  os exit    -- Constants to change to adjust aspect local initialOffsetX   20 local offsetY   50 local offsetIncrementX   20 local offsetIncrementY   12 local iconOffset   10  local width   800 -- Still arbitrary local titleHeight   width 50 local height   offsetIncrementY    fileNb   1    titleHeight local outfile    CairoDirTree      outputType  local ctxSurface if outputType     svg  then   ctxSurface   cairo SvgSurface outfile  width  height  else   ctxSurface   cairo ImageSurface CAIRO FORMAT RGB24  width  height  end local ctx   cairo Context ctxSurface   -- Display a file name -- file is the file name to display -- offsetX is the indentation function DisplayFile file  bIsDir  offsetX    if bIsDir then     ctx save       ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD      ctx set source rgb 0 5  0 0  0 7    end    -- Display file name   ctx move to offsetX  offsetY    ctx show text file     if bIsDir then     ctx new sub path   -- Position independent of latest move to     -- Draw arc with absolute coordinates     ctx arc offsetX - iconOffset  offsetY - offsetIncrementY 3  offsetIncrementY 3  0  TWO PI      -- Violet disk     ctx set source rgb 0 7  0 0  0 7      ctx fill       ctx restore   -- Restore original settings   end    -- Increment line offset   offsetY   offsetY   offsetIncrementY end  -- Erase background  white  ctx set source rgb 1 0  1 0  1 0  ctx paint    --  ctx set line width 0 01   -- Draw in dark blue ctx set source rgb 0 0  0 0  0 3  ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD  ctx set font size titleHeight  ctx move to 5  titleHeight  -- Display title ctx show text  Directory tree of      dirToList   -- Select font for file names ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT NORMAL  ctx set font size 10  offsetY   titleHeight   2  -- Do the job function DisplayDirectory dirToList  offsetX    for k  v in pairs dirToList  do --  print k  v      if type v      table  then       -- Sub-directory       DisplayFile k  true  offsetX        DisplayDirectory v  offsetX   offsetIncrementX      else       DisplayFile k  false  offsetX      end   end end  DisplayDirectory dirListing  initialOffsetX   if outputType     svg  then     cairo show page ctx  else   --cairo surface write to png ctxSurface  outfile    ctxSurface write to png outfile  end  ctx destroy   ctxSurface destroy    print  Found      fileNb      files     Of course  you can change the styles  I didn t draw the connection lines  I didn t saw it as necessary  I might add them optionally later

User · Answer

As promised  here is my Cairo version  I scripted it with Lua  using lfs to walk the directories  I love these little challenges  as they allow me to explore APIs I wanted to dig for quite some time    lfs and LuaCairo are both cross-platform  so it should work on other systems  tested on French WinXP Pro SP3    I made a first version drawing file names as I walked the tree  Advantage  no memory overhead  Inconvenience  I have to specify the image size beforehand  so listings are likely to be cut off   So I made this version  first walking the directory tree  storing it in a Lua table  Then  knowing the number of files  creating the canvas to fit  at least vertically  and drawing the names  You can easily switch between PNG rendering and SVG one  Problem with the latter  Cairo generates it at low level  drawing the letters instead of using SVG s text capability  Well  at least  it guarantees accurate rending even on systems without the font  But the files are bigger    Not really a problem if you compress it after  to have a  svgz file  Or it shouldn t be too hard to generate the SVG directly  I used Lua to generate SVG in the past   -- LuaFileSystem  lt http   www keplerproject org luafilesystem  gt  require lfs  -- LuaCairo  lt http   www dynaset org dogusanh  gt  require lcairo  local CAIRO   cairo   local PI   math pi local TWO PI   2   PI  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Graphviz  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Tecgraf  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine tcc  -- Ensure path ends with   dirToList   string gsub dirToList               1    print  Listing       dirToList  local fileNb   0  --  outputType    svg  outputType    png   -- dirToList must have a trailing slash function ListDirectory dirToList    local dirListing        for file in lfs dir dirToList  do     if file         and file        then       local fileAttr   lfs attributes dirToList    file        if fileAttr mode     directory  then         dirListing file    ListDirectory dirToList    file               else         dirListing file             end       fileNb   fileNb   1     end   end   return dirListing end  --dofile     Lua DumpObject lua   -- My own dump routine local dirListing   ListDirectory dirToList  --  print   n     DumpObject dirListing   print  Found      fileNb      files    --  os exit    -- Constants to change to adjust aspect local initialOffsetX   20 local offsetY   50 local offsetIncrementX   20 local offsetIncrementY   12 local iconOffset   10  local width   800 -- Still arbitrary local titleHeight   width 50 local height   offsetIncrementY    fileNb   1    titleHeight local outfile    CairoDirTree      outputType  local ctxSurface if outputType     svg  then   ctxSurface   cairo SvgSurface outfile  width  height  else   ctxSurface   cairo ImageSurface CAIRO FORMAT RGB24  width  height  end local ctx   cairo Context ctxSurface   -- Display a file name -- file is the file name to display -- offsetX is the indentation function DisplayFile file  bIsDir  offsetX    if bIsDir then     ctx save       ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD      ctx set source rgb 0 5  0 0  0 7    end    -- Display file name   ctx move to offsetX  offsetY    ctx show text file     if bIsDir then     ctx new sub path   -- Position independent of latest move to     -- Draw arc with absolute coordinates     ctx arc offsetX - iconOffset  offsetY - offsetIncrementY 3  offsetIncrementY 3  0  TWO PI      -- Violet disk     ctx set source rgb 0 7  0 0  0 7      ctx fill       ctx restore   -- Restore original settings   end    -- Increment line offset   offsetY   offsetY   offsetIncrementY end  -- Erase background  white  ctx set source rgb 1 0  1 0  1 0  ctx paint    --  ctx set line width 0 01   -- Draw in dark blue ctx set source rgb 0 0  0 0  0 3  ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD  ctx set font size titleHeight  ctx move to 5  titleHeight  -- Display title ctx show text  Directory tree of      dirToList   -- Select font for file names ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT NORMAL  ctx set font size 10  offsetY   titleHeight   2  -- Do the job function DisplayDirectory dirToList  offsetX    for k  v in pairs dirToList  do --  print k  v      if type v      table  then       -- Sub-directory       DisplayFile k  true  offsetX        DisplayDirectory v  offsetX   offsetIncrementX      else       DisplayFile k  false  offsetX      end   end end  DisplayDirectory dirListing  initialOffsetX   if outputType     svg  then     cairo show page ctx  else   --cairo surface write to png ctxSurface  outfile    ctxSurface write to png outfile  end  ctx destroy   ctxSurface destroy    print  Found      fileNb      files     Of course  you can change the styles  I didn t draw the connection lines  I didn t saw it as necessary  I might add them optionally later

User · Answer

Copying and pasting from the MS-DOS tree command might also work for you  Examples    tree  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       tree  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       Syntax  source   tree  drive   path    F    A      drive  path     Drive and directory containing disk for display of directory structure  without listing files        F     Include all files living in every directory        A     Replace graphic characters used for linking lines with ext characters   instead of graphic characters   a is used with code pages that do not support graphic characters and to send output to printers that do not properly interpret graphic characters

User · Answer

Graphviz - from the web page      The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of graphs in a simple text language  and make diagrams in several useful formats such as images and SVG for web pages  Postscript for inclusion in PDF or other documents  or display in an interactive graph browser   Graphviz also supports GXL  an XML dialect      It s the simplest and most productive tool I ve found to create a variety of boxes-and-lines diagrams  I have and use Visio and OmniGraffle  but there s always the temptation to make  just one more adjustment    It s also quite easy to write code to produce the  dot file  format that Graphiz consumes  so automated diagram production is also nicely within reach

User · Answer

The advice to use Graphviz is good  you can generate the dot file and it will do the hard work of measuring strings  doing the layout  etc  Plus it can output the graphs in lot of formats  including vector ones   I found a Perl program doing precisely that  in a mailing list  but I just can t find it back  I copied the sample dot file and studied it  since I don t know much of this declarative syntax and I wanted to learn a bit more   Problem  with latest Graphviz  I have errors  or rather  warnings  as the final diagram is generated   both in the original graph and the one I wrote  by hand   Some searches shown this error was found in old versions and disappeared in more recent versions  Looks like it is back   I still give the file  maybe it can be a starting point for somebody  or maybe it is enough for your needs  of course  you still have to generate it    digraph tree     rankdir LR     DirTree  label  Directory Tree  shape box     a Foo txt  shape point    f Foo txt  label  Foo txt   shape none    a Foo txt - gt  f Foo txt    a Foo Bar html  shape point    f Foo Bar html  label  Foo Bar html   shape none    a Foo Bar html - gt  f Foo Bar html    a Bar png  shape point    f Bar png  label  Bar png   shape none    a Bar png - gt  f Bar png    a Some Dir  shape point    d Some Dir  label  Some Dir   shape ellipse    a Some Dir - gt  d Some Dir    a VBE C reg  shape point    f VBE C reg  label  VBE C reg   shape none    a VBE C reg - gt  f VBE C reg    a P Folder  shape point    d P Folder  label  P Folder   shape ellipse    a P Folder - gt  d P Folder    a Processing 20081117 7z  shape point    f Processing 20081117 7z  label  Processing-20081117 7z   shape none    a Processing 20081117 7z - gt  f Processing 20081117 7z    a UsefulBits lua  shape point    f UsefulBits lua  label  UsefulBits lua   shape none    a UsefulBits lua - gt  f UsefulBits lua    a Graphviz  shape point    d Graphviz  label  Graphviz   shape ellipse    a Graphviz - gt  d Graphviz    a Tree dot  shape point    f Tree dot  label  Tree dot   shape none    a Tree dot - gt  f Tree dot          rank same      DirTree - gt  a Foo txt - gt  a Foo Bar html - gt  a Bar png - gt  a Some Dir - gt  a Graphviz  arrowhead none              rank same      d Some Dir - gt  a VBE C reg - gt  a P Folder - gt  a UsefulBits lua  arrowhead none              rank same      d P Folder - gt  a Processing 20081117 7z  arrowhead none              rank same      d Graphviz - gt  a Tree dot  arrowhead none          gt  dot -Tpng Tree dot -o Tree png Error  lost DirTree a Foo txt edge Error  lost a Foo txt a Foo Bar html edge Error  lost a Foo Bar html a Bar png edge Error  lost a Bar png a Some Dir edge Error  lost a Some Dir a Graphviz edge Error  lost d Some Dir a VBE C reg edge Error  lost a VBE C reg a P Folder edge Error  lost a P Folder a UsefulBits lua edge Error  lost d P Folder a Processing 20081117 7z edge Error  lost d Graphviz a Tree dot edge   I will try another direction  using Cairo  which is also able to export a number of formats  It is more work  computing positions offsets  but the structure is simple  shouldn t be too hard

User · Answer

Why could you not just make a file structure on the Windows file system and populate it with your desired names, then use a screen grabber like HyperSnap (or the ubiquitous Alt-PrtScr) to capture a section of the Explorer window.

I did this when 'demoing' an internet application which would have collapsible sections, I just had to create files that looked like my desired entries.

HyperSnap gives JPGs at least (probably others but I've never bothered to investigate).

Or you could screen capture the icons +/- from Explorer and use them within MS Word Draw itself to do your picture, but I've never been able to get MS Word Draw to behave itself properly.

User · Answer

Graphviz - from the web page      The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of graphs in a simple text language  and make diagrams in several useful formats such as images and SVG for web pages  Postscript for inclusion in PDF or other documents  or display in an interactive graph browser   Graphviz also supports GXL  an XML dialect      It s the simplest and most productive tool I ve found to create a variety of boxes-and-lines diagrams  I have and use Visio and OmniGraffle  but there s always the temptation to make  just one more adjustment    It s also quite easy to write code to produce the  dot file  format that Graphiz consumes  so automated diagram production is also nicely within reach

User · Answer

Copying and pasting from the MS-DOS tree command might also work for you  Examples    tree  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       tree  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       Syntax  source   tree  drive   path    F    A      drive  path     Drive and directory containing disk for display of directory structure  without listing files        F     Include all files living in every directory        A     Replace graphic characters used for linking lines with ext characters   instead of graphic characters   a is used with code pages that do not support graphic characters and to send output to printers that do not properly interpret graphic characters

User · Answer

The advice to use Graphviz is good  you can generate the dot file and it will do the hard work of measuring strings  doing the layout  etc  Plus it can output the graphs in lot of formats  including vector ones   I found a Perl program doing precisely that  in a mailing list  but I just can t find it back  I copied the sample dot file and studied it  since I don t know much of this declarative syntax and I wanted to learn a bit more   Problem  with latest Graphviz  I have errors  or rather  warnings  as the final diagram is generated   both in the original graph and the one I wrote  by hand   Some searches shown this error was found in old versions and disappeared in more recent versions  Looks like it is back   I still give the file  maybe it can be a starting point for somebody  or maybe it is enough for your needs  of course  you still have to generate it    digraph tree     rankdir LR     DirTree  label  Directory Tree  shape box     a Foo txt  shape point    f Foo txt  label  Foo txt   shape none    a Foo txt - gt  f Foo txt    a Foo Bar html  shape point    f Foo Bar html  label  Foo Bar html   shape none    a Foo Bar html - gt  f Foo Bar html    a Bar png  shape point    f Bar png  label  Bar png   shape none    a Bar png - gt  f Bar png    a Some Dir  shape point    d Some Dir  label  Some Dir   shape ellipse    a Some Dir - gt  d Some Dir    a VBE C reg  shape point    f VBE C reg  label  VBE C reg   shape none    a VBE C reg - gt  f VBE C reg    a P Folder  shape point    d P Folder  label  P Folder   shape ellipse    a P Folder - gt  d P Folder    a Processing 20081117 7z  shape point    f Processing 20081117 7z  label  Processing-20081117 7z   shape none    a Processing 20081117 7z - gt  f Processing 20081117 7z    a UsefulBits lua  shape point    f UsefulBits lua  label  UsefulBits lua   shape none    a UsefulBits lua - gt  f UsefulBits lua    a Graphviz  shape point    d Graphviz  label  Graphviz   shape ellipse    a Graphviz - gt  d Graphviz    a Tree dot  shape point    f Tree dot  label  Tree dot   shape none    a Tree dot - gt  f Tree dot          rank same      DirTree - gt  a Foo txt - gt  a Foo Bar html - gt  a Bar png - gt  a Some Dir - gt  a Graphviz  arrowhead none              rank same      d Some Dir - gt  a VBE C reg - gt  a P Folder - gt  a UsefulBits lua  arrowhead none              rank same      d P Folder - gt  a Processing 20081117 7z  arrowhead none              rank same      d Graphviz - gt  a Tree dot  arrowhead none          gt  dot -Tpng Tree dot -o Tree png Error  lost DirTree a Foo txt edge Error  lost a Foo txt a Foo Bar html edge Error  lost a Foo Bar html a Bar png edge Error  lost a Bar png a Some Dir edge Error  lost a Some Dir a Graphviz edge Error  lost d Some Dir a VBE C reg edge Error  lost a VBE C reg a P Folder edge Error  lost a P Folder a UsefulBits lua edge Error  lost d P Folder a Processing 20081117 7z edge Error  lost d Graphviz a Tree dot edge   I will try another direction  using Cairo  which is also able to export a number of formats  It is more work  computing positions offsets  but the structure is simple  shouldn t be too hard

User · Answer

Graphviz - from the web page      The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of graphs in a simple text language  and make diagrams in several useful formats such as images and SVG for web pages  Postscript for inclusion in PDF or other documents  or display in an interactive graph browser   Graphviz also supports GXL  an XML dialect      It s the simplest and most productive tool I ve found to create a variety of boxes-and-lines diagrams  I have and use Visio and OmniGraffle  but there s always the temptation to make  just one more adjustment    It s also quite easy to write code to produce the  dot file  format that Graphiz consumes  so automated diagram production is also nicely within reach

User · Answer

The advice to use Graphviz is good  you can generate the dot file and it will do the hard work of measuring strings  doing the layout  etc  Plus it can output the graphs in lot of formats  including vector ones   I found a Perl program doing precisely that  in a mailing list  but I just can t find it back  I copied the sample dot file and studied it  since I don t know much of this declarative syntax and I wanted to learn a bit more   Problem  with latest Graphviz  I have errors  or rather  warnings  as the final diagram is generated   both in the original graph and the one I wrote  by hand   Some searches shown this error was found in old versions and disappeared in more recent versions  Looks like it is back   I still give the file  maybe it can be a starting point for somebody  or maybe it is enough for your needs  of course  you still have to generate it    digraph tree     rankdir LR     DirTree  label  Directory Tree  shape box     a Foo txt  shape point    f Foo txt  label  Foo txt   shape none    a Foo txt - gt  f Foo txt    a Foo Bar html  shape point    f Foo Bar html  label  Foo Bar html   shape none    a Foo Bar html - gt  f Foo Bar html    a Bar png  shape point    f Bar png  label  Bar png   shape none    a Bar png - gt  f Bar png    a Some Dir  shape point    d Some Dir  label  Some Dir   shape ellipse    a Some Dir - gt  d Some Dir    a VBE C reg  shape point    f VBE C reg  label  VBE C reg   shape none    a VBE C reg - gt  f VBE C reg    a P Folder  shape point    d P Folder  label  P Folder   shape ellipse    a P Folder - gt  d P Folder    a Processing 20081117 7z  shape point    f Processing 20081117 7z  label  Processing-20081117 7z   shape none    a Processing 20081117 7z - gt  f Processing 20081117 7z    a UsefulBits lua  shape point    f UsefulBits lua  label  UsefulBits lua   shape none    a UsefulBits lua - gt  f UsefulBits lua    a Graphviz  shape point    d Graphviz  label  Graphviz   shape ellipse    a Graphviz - gt  d Graphviz    a Tree dot  shape point    f Tree dot  label  Tree dot   shape none    a Tree dot - gt  f Tree dot          rank same      DirTree - gt  a Foo txt - gt  a Foo Bar html - gt  a Bar png - gt  a Some Dir - gt  a Graphviz  arrowhead none              rank same      d Some Dir - gt  a VBE C reg - gt  a P Folder - gt  a UsefulBits lua  arrowhead none              rank same      d P Folder - gt  a Processing 20081117 7z  arrowhead none              rank same      d Graphviz - gt  a Tree dot  arrowhead none          gt  dot -Tpng Tree dot -o Tree png Error  lost DirTree a Foo txt edge Error  lost a Foo txt a Foo Bar html edge Error  lost a Foo Bar html a Bar png edge Error  lost a Bar png a Some Dir edge Error  lost a Some Dir a Graphviz edge Error  lost d Some Dir a VBE C reg edge Error  lost a VBE C reg a P Folder edge Error  lost a P Folder a UsefulBits lua edge Error  lost d P Folder a Processing 20081117 7z edge Error  lost d Graphviz a Tree dot edge   I will try another direction  using Cairo  which is also able to export a number of formats  It is more work  computing positions offsets  but the structure is simple  shouldn t be too hard

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Why could you not just make a file structure on the Windows file system and populate it with your desired names, then use a screen grabber like HyperSnap (or the ubiquitous Alt-PrtScr) to capture a section of the Explorer window.

I did this when 'demoing' an internet application which would have collapsible sections, I just had to create files that looked like my desired entries.

HyperSnap gives JPGs at least (probably others but I've never bothered to investigate).

Or you could screen capture the icons +/- from Explorer and use them within MS Word Draw itself to do your picture, but I've never been able to get MS Word Draw to behave itself properly.

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Copying and pasting from the MS-DOS tree command might also work for you  Examples    tree  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       tree  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       Syntax  source   tree  drive   path    F    A      drive  path     Drive and directory containing disk for display of directory structure  without listing files        F     Include all files living in every directory        A     Replace graphic characters used for linking lines with ext characters   instead of graphic characters   a is used with code pages that do not support graphic characters and to send output to printers that do not properly interpret graphic characters

User · Answer

Copying and pasting from the MS-DOS tree command might also work for you  Examples    tree  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  C  Foobar gt tree C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       tree  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts  ---barconfig  ---Baz       ---BadBaz       ---Drop       tree  F  A  C  Foobar gt tree  A C    ---FooScripts       foo sh  ---barconfig       bar xml  ---Baz       ---BadBaz            badbaz xml       ---Drop       Syntax  source   tree  drive   path    F    A      drive  path     Drive and directory containing disk for display of directory structure  without listing files        F     Include all files living in every directory        A     Replace graphic characters used for linking lines with ext characters   instead of graphic characters   a is used with code pages that do not support graphic characters and to send output to printers that do not properly interpret graphic characters

User · Answer

The advice to use Graphviz is good  you can generate the dot file and it will do the hard work of measuring strings  doing the layout  etc  Plus it can output the graphs in lot of formats  including vector ones   I found a Perl program doing precisely that  in a mailing list  but I just can t find it back  I copied the sample dot file and studied it  since I don t know much of this declarative syntax and I wanted to learn a bit more   Problem  with latest Graphviz  I have errors  or rather  warnings  as the final diagram is generated   both in the original graph and the one I wrote  by hand   Some searches shown this error was found in old versions and disappeared in more recent versions  Looks like it is back   I still give the file  maybe it can be a starting point for somebody  or maybe it is enough for your needs  of course  you still have to generate it    digraph tree     rankdir LR     DirTree  label  Directory Tree  shape box     a Foo txt  shape point    f Foo txt  label  Foo txt   shape none    a Foo txt - gt  f Foo txt    a Foo Bar html  shape point    f Foo Bar html  label  Foo Bar html   shape none    a Foo Bar html - gt  f Foo Bar html    a Bar png  shape point    f Bar png  label  Bar png   shape none    a Bar png - gt  f Bar png    a Some Dir  shape point    d Some Dir  label  Some Dir   shape ellipse    a Some Dir - gt  d Some Dir    a VBE C reg  shape point    f VBE C reg  label  VBE C reg   shape none    a VBE C reg - gt  f VBE C reg    a P Folder  shape point    d P Folder  label  P Folder   shape ellipse    a P Folder - gt  d P Folder    a Processing 20081117 7z  shape point    f Processing 20081117 7z  label  Processing-20081117 7z   shape none    a Processing 20081117 7z - gt  f Processing 20081117 7z    a UsefulBits lua  shape point    f UsefulBits lua  label  UsefulBits lua   shape none    a UsefulBits lua - gt  f UsefulBits lua    a Graphviz  shape point    d Graphviz  label  Graphviz   shape ellipse    a Graphviz - gt  d Graphviz    a Tree dot  shape point    f Tree dot  label  Tree dot   shape none    a Tree dot - gt  f Tree dot          rank same      DirTree - gt  a Foo txt - gt  a Foo Bar html - gt  a Bar png - gt  a Some Dir - gt  a Graphviz  arrowhead none              rank same      d Some Dir - gt  a VBE C reg - gt  a P Folder - gt  a UsefulBits lua  arrowhead none              rank same      d P Folder - gt  a Processing 20081117 7z  arrowhead none              rank same      d Graphviz - gt  a Tree dot  arrowhead none          gt  dot -Tpng Tree dot -o Tree png Error  lost DirTree a Foo txt edge Error  lost a Foo txt a Foo Bar html edge Error  lost a Foo Bar html a Bar png edge Error  lost a Bar png a Some Dir edge Error  lost a Some Dir a Graphviz edge Error  lost d Some Dir a VBE C reg edge Error  lost a VBE C reg a P Folder edge Error  lost a P Folder a UsefulBits lua edge Error  lost d P Folder a Processing 20081117 7z edge Error  lost d Graphviz a Tree dot edge   I will try another direction  using Cairo  which is also able to export a number of formats  It is more work  computing positions offsets  but the structure is simple  shouldn t be too hard

User · Answer

Graphviz - from the web page      The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of graphs in a simple text language  and make diagrams in several useful formats such as images and SVG for web pages  Postscript for inclusion in PDF or other documents  or display in an interactive graph browser   Graphviz also supports GXL  an XML dialect      It s the simplest and most productive tool I ve found to create a variety of boxes-and-lines diagrams  I have and use Visio and OmniGraffle  but there s always the temptation to make  just one more adjustment    It s also quite easy to write code to produce the  dot file  format that Graphiz consumes  so automated diagram production is also nicely within reach

User · Answer

As promised  here is my Cairo version  I scripted it with Lua  using lfs to walk the directories  I love these little challenges  as they allow me to explore APIs I wanted to dig for quite some time    lfs and LuaCairo are both cross-platform  so it should work on other systems  tested on French WinXP Pro SP3    I made a first version drawing file names as I walked the tree  Advantage  no memory overhead  Inconvenience  I have to specify the image size beforehand  so listings are likely to be cut off   So I made this version  first walking the directory tree  storing it in a Lua table  Then  knowing the number of files  creating the canvas to fit  at least vertically  and drawing the names  You can easily switch between PNG rendering and SVG one  Problem with the latter  Cairo generates it at low level  drawing the letters instead of using SVG s text capability  Well  at least  it guarantees accurate rending even on systems without the font  But the files are bigger    Not really a problem if you compress it after  to have a  svgz file  Or it shouldn t be too hard to generate the SVG directly  I used Lua to generate SVG in the past   -- LuaFileSystem  lt http   www keplerproject org luafilesystem  gt  require lfs  -- LuaCairo  lt http   www dynaset org dogusanh  gt  require lcairo  local CAIRO   cairo   local PI   math pi local TWO PI   2   PI  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Graphviz  --  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine Tecgraf  local dirToList   arg 1  or  C  PrgCmdLine tcc  -- Ensure path ends with   dirToList   string gsub dirToList               1    print  Listing       dirToList  local fileNb   0  --  outputType    svg  outputType    png   -- dirToList must have a trailing slash function ListDirectory dirToList    local dirListing        for file in lfs dir dirToList  do     if file         and file        then       local fileAttr   lfs attributes dirToList    file        if fileAttr mode     directory  then         dirListing file    ListDirectory dirToList    file               else         dirListing file             end       fileNb   fileNb   1     end   end   return dirListing end  --dofile     Lua DumpObject lua   -- My own dump routine local dirListing   ListDirectory dirToList  --  print   n     DumpObject dirListing   print  Found      fileNb      files    --  os exit    -- Constants to change to adjust aspect local initialOffsetX   20 local offsetY   50 local offsetIncrementX   20 local offsetIncrementY   12 local iconOffset   10  local width   800 -- Still arbitrary local titleHeight   width 50 local height   offsetIncrementY    fileNb   1    titleHeight local outfile    CairoDirTree      outputType  local ctxSurface if outputType     svg  then   ctxSurface   cairo SvgSurface outfile  width  height  else   ctxSurface   cairo ImageSurface CAIRO FORMAT RGB24  width  height  end local ctx   cairo Context ctxSurface   -- Display a file name -- file is the file name to display -- offsetX is the indentation function DisplayFile file  bIsDir  offsetX    if bIsDir then     ctx save       ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD      ctx set source rgb 0 5  0 0  0 7    end    -- Display file name   ctx move to offsetX  offsetY    ctx show text file     if bIsDir then     ctx new sub path   -- Position independent of latest move to     -- Draw arc with absolute coordinates     ctx arc offsetX - iconOffset  offsetY - offsetIncrementY 3  offsetIncrementY 3  0  TWO PI      -- Violet disk     ctx set source rgb 0 7  0 0  0 7      ctx fill       ctx restore   -- Restore original settings   end    -- Increment line offset   offsetY   offsetY   offsetIncrementY end  -- Erase background  white  ctx set source rgb 1 0  1 0  1 0  ctx paint    --  ctx set line width 0 01   -- Draw in dark blue ctx set source rgb 0 0  0 0  0 3  ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT BOLD  ctx set font size titleHeight  ctx move to 5  titleHeight  -- Display title ctx show text  Directory tree of      dirToList   -- Select font for file names ctx select font face  Sans   CAIRO FONT SLANT NORMAL  CAIRO FONT WEIGHT NORMAL  ctx set font size 10  offsetY   titleHeight   2  -- Do the job function DisplayDirectory dirToList  offsetX    for k  v in pairs dirToList  do --  print k  v      if type v      table  then       -- Sub-directory       DisplayFile k  true  offsetX        DisplayDirectory v  offsetX   offsetIncrementX      else       DisplayFile k  false  offsetX      end   end end  DisplayDirectory dirListing  initialOffsetX   if outputType     svg  then     cairo show page ctx  else   --cairo surface write to png ctxSurface  outfile    ctxSurface write to png outfile  end  ctx destroy   ctxSurface destroy    print  Found      fileNb      files     Of course  you can change the styles  I didn t draw the connection lines  I didn t saw it as necessary  I might add them optionally later

User · Answer

Why could you not just make a file structure on the Windows file system and populate it with your desired names, then use a screen grabber like HyperSnap (or the ubiquitous Alt-PrtScr) to capture a section of the Explorer window.

I did this when 'demoing' an internet application which would have collapsible sections, I just had to create files that looked like my desired entries.

HyperSnap gives JPGs at least (probably others but I've never bothered to investigate).

Or you could screen capture the icons +/- from Explorer and use them within MS Word Draw itself to do your picture, but I've never been able to get MS Word Draw to behave itself properly.

[bash] What tool to use to draw file tree diagram

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