Manual: tree
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] [--acl] [--selinux] [--condense] [--comā
press[=]#] [--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 comā
pletion of listing all files/directories found, tree returns the total number of files and/or direcā
tories 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 folā
low 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 outā
putting 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 characā
ter), `[...]' (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 or directories that match the wild-card pattern. You may have multiā
ple -I options. See -P above for information on wildcard patterns.
--gitignore
Uses git .gitignore files for filtering files and directories. Also attempts to walk up the
directory tree from the given path(s) searching for .gitignore files as it goes, stopping at /
or a directory containing a .git directory. If a .git directory is found it will add the
.git/info/exclude file as well. 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 foldā
ers 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.
--condense
Condenses the output of directory 'singletons' -- directories that themselves only contain a
single directory, onto a single line and does so recursively. Note that any meta-information
printed will be for the first directory shown.
-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-diā
rectories (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 direcā
tory 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.
--timefmt[=]format
Prints (implies -D) and formats the date according to the format string which uses the strfā
time(3) syntax.
-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
--acl (Linux only)
Prints the permissions, and if an ACL is present on the file appends + to the list of permisā
sions. Implies the -p option.
--selinux (Linux only)
Prints the SELinux label for a file if one is present for it.
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 opā
tion 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 opā
tion. 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. This option is now equivā
alent to `--charset=ANSI`.
-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 enā
vironment variables are not set. Useful to colorize output to a pipe.
--compress[=]#
Compresses the indentation lines. The argument may be a positive number from 1 (normal) to 3
(a single character) or -1 to -3 which removes the additional space at each indentation level.
Greater compression levels turn off indentation lines (i.e. -i).
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'). If baseHREF begins with a dash (-), then the dash is
removed and indicates that tree should remove the first directory name from the href URL.
Hint: don't use ANSI lines with this option, and don't give more than one directory in the diā
rectory 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 comā
mand line are files to read from rather than directories to search. The dot (.) directory inā
dicates that tree should read paths from standard input. NOTE: this is only suitable for readā
ing 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 --noreā
port'. 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. Useā
ful 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/diā
rectory 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 howā
ever, 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 2.3.1 TREE(1)