Python Print Directory Tree

Introduction

Many blogs are showing how to print directory tree using Python. Drawing from those examples, we built our version. The primary drivers were:

1. Compatibility with Python3
2. Print symbolic links
3. Limit depth of tree

Example output:

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$ ptree.py -l 2 /var var -> private/var/ |-- venv -> /usr/local/share/virtualenvs |-- accord/ | |-- .DS_Store | |-- data/ | | |-- .DS_Store |-- acrisel/ | |-- .DS_Store | |-- .gitignore | |-- accord/ | | |-- .DS_Store

Function Code

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import os def realname(path, root=None): if root is not None: path=os.path.join(root, path) result=os.path.basename(path) if os.path.islink(path): realpath=os.readlink(path) result= '%s -> %s' % (os.path.basename(path), realpath) return result def ptree(startpath, depth=-1): prefix=0 if startpath != '/': if startpath.endswith('/'): startpath=startpath[:-1] prefix=len(startpath) for root, dirs, files in os.walk(startpath): level = root[prefix:].count(os.sep) if depth >-1 and level > depth: continue indent=subindent ='' if level > 0: indent = '| ' * (level-1) + '|-- ' subindent = '| ' * (level) + '|-- ' print('{}{}/'.format(indent, realname(root))) # print dir only if symbolic link; otherwise, will be printed as root for d in dirs: if os.path.islink(os.path.join(root, d)): print('{}{}'.format(subindent, realname(d, root=root))) for f in files: print('{}{}'.format(subindent, realname(f, root=root)))

I will refrain from going over the code, otherwise self-explanatory, except mentioning the following:

1. os.walk treats symbolic links per their target. Therefore, a symbolic link may appear in dirs and files.
2. only two main features of tree are replicated: accepting both a root path and depth to explore.

Command line Arguments

Command line arguments is simple and self explanatory ...

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if __name__ == '__main__': import argparse parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='prints directory tree.') parser.add_argument('--level', '-l', type=int, dest='depth', default=-1, help='depth of tree to print') parser.add_argument('startpath', type=str, help='path to stating directory') args = parser.parse_args() argsd=vars(args) ptree(**argsd)

References

ptree.py can be download from github