Untree: Undoing tree for fun and profit

Untree converts tree diagrams produced by tree back into directory file structures.

Let's say you have the following directory structure, created by running tree in the root of this project:

.
├── Cargo.lock
├── Cargo.toml
├── inputs
│   └── test1.tree
├── README.md
└── src
    ├── macros.rs
    ├── main.rs
    ├── traits.rs
    └── types.rs

2 directories, 8 files

untree can mirror that directory structure, just based on that input:

tree | untree --dir test

Here, test is the destination directory where untree is supposed to create files. Now, if we tree the newly created directory, we can see that it has the same structure as the repository:

test
├── Cargo.lock
├── Cargo.toml
├── inputs
│   └── test1.tree
├── README.md
└── src
    ├── macros.rs
    ├── main.rs
    ├── traits.rs
    └── types.rs

2 directories, 8 files

untree can also read in the tree from an input file, or you can paste it in directly since it accepts input from standard input:

Motivating untree

I've noticed that in the past I've had to recreate directory structures in order to answer questions or run tests on the directory. For example, this question asks about ignoring certain kinds of files, and it provides a directory structure as reference.

The files themselves aren't provided, nor do they need to be, but the directory structure itself is relevant to the question.

untree allows you to exactly replicate the directory structure, just by pasting in the given directory tree:

Aside from allowing you to answer questions about directory structures, untree is good for quickly creating directory structures for the purpose of mocking input to other programs.

Using untree as a library

You can use untree as a library if you need that functionality included in your program. In order to create a tree, invoke untree::create_tree with the given directory, Lines buffer, and options. These options are very simple - there's UntreeOptions::verbose, which will print out any directories or files that were created if true, and UntreeOptions::dry_run, which will print out any directories or files without actually creating them (dry_run implies verbose)

For more info, see the documentation.

pub fn create_tree(
    directory: &String,
    mut lines: Lines<impl BufRead>,
    options: UntreeOptions,
)

Additional functions, such as untree::create_path, untree::get_entry (used to parse a line in a tree file), untree::touch_directory (used to create a directory, returning an untree::Error on failure), and untree::file (used to touch a file, returning untree::Error on failure) are also provided.

The primary error type used by untree is untree::Error, which holds information about a path and the action being done on it, in addition to the normal error information provided by io::Error.

User testimonials

When asked about untree, my friend said:

I retroactively want that for my time trying to get Conan to work. It woulda made certain things just a little less painful.

— some guy (He asked to be referred to as "some guy")

Comments, feedback, or contributions are welcome!

I'm in the progress of learning rust, so any feedback you have is greatly appreciated! Also, if untree is useful to you, please let me know!