1TREE(1) General Commands Manual TREE(1)
2
6 tree - list contents of directories in a tree-like format.
7
9 tree [-acdfghilnpqrstuvxACDFQNSUX] [-L level [-R]] [-H baseHREF] [-T
10 title] [-o filename] [--nolinks] [-P pattern] [-I pattern] [--inodes]
11 [--device] [--noreport] [--dirsfirst] [--version] [--help] [--filelimit
12 #] [--si] [--prune] [--du] [--timefmt format] [--matchdirs] [--from‐
13 file] [--] [directory ...]
14
17 Tree is a recursive directory listing program that produces a depth
18 indented listing of files, which is colorized ala dircolors if the
19 LS_COLORS environment variable is set and output is to tty. With no
20 arguments, tree lists the files in the current directory. When direc‐
21 tory arguments are given, tree lists all the files and/or directories
22 found in the given directories each in turn. Upon completion of list‐
23 ing all files/directories found, tree returns the total number of files
24 and/or directories listed.
25 By default, when a symbolic link is encountered, the path that the sym‐
27 bolic link refers to is printed after the name of the link in the for‐
28 mat:
29 name -> real-path
31 If the `-l' option is given and the symbolic link refers to an actual
33 directory, then tree will follow the path of the symbolic link as if it
34 were a real directory.
35
38 Tree understands the following command line switches:
39
42 -a All files are printed. By default tree does not print hidden
43 files (those beginning with a dot `.'). In no event does tree
44 print the file system constructs `.' (current directory) and
45 `..' (previous directory).
46 -d List directories only.
48 -l Follows symbolic links if they point to directories, as if they
50 were directories. Symbolic links that will result in recursion
51 are avoided when detected.
52 -f Prints the full path prefix for each file.
54 -x Stay on the current file-system only. Ala find -xdev.
56 -L level
58 Max display depth of the directory tree.
59 -R Recursively cross down the tree each level directories (see -L
61 option), and at each of them execute tree again adding `-o
62 00Tree.html' as a new option.
63 -P pattern
65 List only those files that match the wild-card pattern. Note:
66 you must use the -a option to also consider those files begin‐
67 ning with a dot `.' for matching. Valid wildcard operators are
68 `*' (any zero or more characters), `?' (any single character),
69 `[...]' (any single character listed between brackets (optional
70 - (dash) for character range may be used: ex: [A-Z]), and
71 `[^...]' (any single character not listed in brackets) and `|'
72 separates alternate patterns.
73 -I pattern
75 Do not list those files that match the wild-card pattern.
76 --ignore-case
78 If a match pattern is specified by the -P or -I option, this
79 will cause the pattern to match without regards to the case of
80 each letter.
81 --matchdirs
83 If a match pattern is specified by the -P option, this will
84 cause the pattern to be applied to directory names (in addition
85 to filenames). In the event of a match on the directory name,
86 matching is disabled for the directory's contents. If the
87 --prune option is used, empty folders that match the pattern
88 will not be pruned.
89 --prune
91 Makes tree prune empty directories from the output, useful when
92 used in conjunction with -P or -I. See BUGS AND NOTES below for
93 more information on this option.
94 --noreport
96 Omits printing of the file and directory report at the end of
97 the tree listing.
98 --charset charset
100 Set the character set to use when outputting HTML and for line
101 drawing.
102 --filelimit #
104 Do not descend directories that contain more than # entries.
105 --timefmt format
107 Prints (implies -D) and formats the date according to the format
108 string which uses the strftime(3) syntax.
109 -o filename
111 Send output to filename.
112
114 -q Print non-printable characters in filenames as question marks
115 instead of the default.
116 -N Print non-printable characters as is instead of as escaped octal
118 numbers.
119 -Q Quote the names of files in double quotes.
121 -p Print the file type and permissions for each file (as per ls
123 -l).
124 -u Print the username, or UID # if no username is available, of the
126 file.
127 -g Print the group name, or GID # if no group name is available, of
129 the file.
130 -s Print the size of each file in bytes along with the name.
132 -h Print the size of each file but in a more human readable way,
134 e.g. appending a size letter for kilobytes (K), megabytes (M),
135 gigabytes (G), terabytes (T), petabytes (P) and exabytes (E).
136 --si Like -h but use SI units (powers of 1000) instead.
138 --du For each directory report its size as the accumulation of sizes
140 of all its files and sub-directories (and their files, and so
141 on). The total amount of used space is also given in the final
142 report (like the 'du -c' command.) This option requires tree to
143 read the entire directory tree before emitting it, see BUGS AND
144 NOTES below. Implies -s.
145 -D Print the date of the last modification time or if -c is used,
147 the last status change time for the file listed.
148 -F Append a `/' for directories, a `=' for socket files, a `*' for
150 executable files, a `>' for doors (Solaris) and a `|' for
151 FIFO's, as per ls -F
152 --inodes
154 Prints the inode number of the file or directory
155 --device
157 Prints the device number to which the file or directory belongs
158
160 -v Sort the output by version.
161 -t Sort the output by last modification time instead of alphabeti‐
163 cally.
164 -c Sort the output by last status change instead of alphabetically.
166 Modifies the -D option (if used) to print the last status change
167 instead of modification time.
168 -U Do not sort. Lists files in directory order. Disables --dirs‐
170 first.
171 -r Sort the output in reverse order. This is a meta-sort that
173 alter the above sorts. This option is disabled when -U is used.
174 --dirsfirst
176 List directories before files. This is a meta-sort that alters
177 the above sorts. This option is disabled when -U is used.
178 --sort[=]type
180 Sort the output by type instead of name. Possible values are:
181 ctime (-c), mtime (-t), size, or version (-v).
182
185 -i Makes tree not print the indentation lines, useful when used in
186 conjunction with the -f option. Also removes as much whitespace
187 as possible when used with the -J or -x options.
188 -A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation
190 lines.
191 -S Turn on CP437 line graphics (useful when using Linux console
193 mode fonts). This option is now equivalent to `--charset=IBM437'
194 and may eventually be depreciated.
195 -n Turn colorization off always, over-ridden by the -C option.
197 -C Turn colorization on always, using built-in color defaults if
199 the LS_COLORS or TREE_COLORS environment variables are not set.
200 Useful to colorize output to a pipe.
201
203 -X Turn on XML output. Outputs the directory tree as an XML format‐
204 ted file.
205 -J Turn on JSON output. Outputs the directory tree as an JSON for‐
207 matted array.
208 -H baseHREF
210 Turn on HTML output, including HTTP references. Useful for ftp
211 sites. baseHREF gives the base ftp location when using HTML
212 output. That is, the local directory may be `/local/ftp/pub',
213 but it must be referenced as `ftp://hostname.organiza‐
214 tion.domain/pub' (baseHREF should be `ftp://hostname.organiza‐
215 tion.domain'). Hint: don't use ANSI lines with this option, and
216 don't give more than one directory in the directory list. If you
217 wish to use colors via CSS style-sheet, use the -C option in
218 addition to this option to force color output.
219 -T title
221 Sets the title and H1 header string in HTML output mode.
222 --nolinks
224 Turns off hyperlinks in HTML output.
225
227 --fromfile Reads a directory listing from a file rather than the file-
228 system. Paths provided on the command line are files to read from
229 rather than directories to search. The dot (.) directory indicates
230 that tree should read paths from standard input.
231
234 --help Outputs a verbose usage listing.
235 --version
237 Outputs the version of tree.
238 -- Option processing terminator. No further options will be pro‐
240 cessed after this.
241
243 /etc/DIR_COLORS System color database.
244 ~/.dircolors Users color database.
245
248 LS_COLORS Color information created by dircolors
249 TREE_COLORS Uses this for color information over LS_COLORS if it is
250 set.
251 TREE_CHARSET Character set for tree to use in HTML mode.
252 CLICOLOR Enables colorization even if TREE_COLORS or LS_COLORS is
253 not set.
254 CLICOLOR_FORCE Always enables colorization (effectively -C)
255 LC_CTYPE Locale for filename output.
256 LC_TIME Locale for timefmt output, see strftime(3).
257 TZ Timezone for timefmt output, see strftime(3).
258
261 Steve Baker (ice@mama.indstate.edu)
262 HTML output hacked by Francesc Rocher (rocher@econ.udg.es)
263 Charsets and OS/2 support by Kyosuke Tokoro (NBG01720@nifty.ne.jp)
264
267 Tree does not prune "empty" directories when the -P and -I options are
268 used by default. Use the --prune option.
269 The -h and --si options round to the nearest whole number unlike the ls
271 implementations which rounds up always.
272 Pruning files and directories with the -I, -P and --filelimit options
274 will lead to incorrect file/directory count reports.
275 The --prune and --du options cause tree to accumulate the entire tree
277 in memory before emitting it. For large directory trees this can cause
278 a significant delay in output and the use of large amounts of memory.
279 The timefmt expansion buffer is limited to a ridiculously large 255
281 characters. Output of time strings longer than this will be undefined,
282 but are guaranteed to not exceed 255 characters.
283 XML/JSON trees are not colored, which is a bit of a shame.
285 Probably more.
287
290 dircolors(1), ls(1), find(1), du(1), strftime(3)
291Tree 1.8.0 TREE(1)