# tree(1) - man - phpMan [TREE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TREE/1/markdown) General Commands Manual [TREE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TREE/1/markdown) ## 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**] [**--matchdirs**] [**--metafirst**] [**--ignore-case**] [**--no**‐‐ **links**] [**--inodes**] [**--device**] [**--sort**[**=**]_name_] [**--dirsfirst**] [**--filesfirst**] [**--filelimit** _#_] [**--si**] [**--du**] [**--prune**] [**--timefmt**[**=**]_format_] [**--fromfile**] [**--info**] [**--noreport**] [**--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 out‐ put is to tty. With no arguments, _tree_ lists the files in the current directory. When di‐ rectory 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_ re‐ turns 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 with a dot `.'). In no event does tree print the file system constructs `.' (current directory) and `..' (previous directory). ### -d ### -l bolic links that will result in recursion are avoided when detected. ### -f ### -x ### -L Max display depth of the directory tree. ### -R -L them execute **tree** again adding `-o 00Tree.html' as a new option. ### -P List only those files that match the wild-card _pattern_. You may have multiple -P op‐ tions. 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 sin‐ gle character not listed in brackets) and `|' separates alternate patterns. A '/' at the end of the pattern matches directories, but not files. ### -I 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. ### --ignore-case If a match pattern is specified by the **-P** or **-I** option, this will cause the pattern to match without regards 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** op‐ tion 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 in‐ dentation 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. ### --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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown) syntax. ### -o Send output to _filename_. ## FILE OPTIONS ### -q ### -N ### -Q ### -p ### -u ### -g ### -s ### -h 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 -c time for the file listed. ### -F `>' 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 ### -t ### -c -D tion (if used) to print the last status change instead of modification time. ### -U --dirsfirst ### -r 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**, or **version** (**-v).** ## GRAPHICS OPTIONS ### -i **-f** option. Also removes as much whitespace as possible when used with the **-J** or **-x** options. ### -A ### -S is now equivalent to `--charset=IBM437' and may eventually be depreciated. ### -n -C COLOR_FORCE if present. ### -C TREE_COLORS environment variables are not set. Useful to colorize output to a pipe. ## XML/JSON/HTML OPTIONS ### -X ### -J ### -H 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.do‐ main/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. ### -T Sets the title and H1 header string in HTML output mode. ### --nolinks Turns off hyperlinks in HTML output. ## 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 suit‐ able for reading the output of a program such as find, not 'tree -fi' as symlinks cannot (at least as yet) be distinguished from files that simply contain ' -> ' as part of the filename. ## MISC OPTIONS **--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 similiar to .gitignore files, if a .info file is found while scanning a di‐ rectory it is read and added to a stack of .info information. Each file is composed of com‐ ments (lines starting with hash marks (#),) or wild-card patterns which may match a file rel‐ ative 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 termi‐ nated by a non-tab indented line. Multiple patterns, each to a line, may share the same com‐ ment. ## 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) **LC**___**CTYPE** Locale for filename output. **LC**___**TIME** Locale for timefmt output, see [**strftime**(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown). **TZ** Timezone for timefmt output, see [**strftime**(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown). **STDDATA**___**FD** Enable the stddata feature, optionally set descriptor to use. ## AUTHOR Steve Baker () HTML output hacked by Francesc Rocher () Charsets and OS/2 support by Kyosuke Tokoro () ## 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 emit‐ ting 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 charac‐ ters. XML/JSON trees are not colored, which is a bit of a shame. 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 STD‐ DATA_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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/dircolors/1/markdown), [**ls**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ls/1/markdown), [**find**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/find/1/markdown), [**du**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/du/1/markdown), [**strftime**(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown) [**gitignore**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gitignore/5/markdown) Tree 2.0.0 [TREE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TREE/1/markdown)