Is there a way to represent a directory tree in a Github README.md?

Question

I got resolver the problem in this way:

1. Insert command tree in bash.

Example

2. Create a README.md in github repository and copy bash result
3. Insert in .md file within markdown code

Example

4. See the output and be happy =)

I wrote a small script that does the trick:

#!/bin/bash

#File: tree-md

tree=$(tree -tf --noreport -I '*~' --charset ascii $1 |
       sed -e 's/| \+/  /g' -e 's/[|`]-\+/ */g' -e 's:\(* \)\(\(.*/\)\([^/]\+\)\):\1[\4](\2):g')

printf "# Project tree\n\n${tree}"

Example:

Original tree command:

$ tree
.
├── dir1
│   ├── file11.ext
│   └── file12.ext
├── dir2
│   ├── file21.ext
│   ├── file22.ext
│   └── file23.ext
├── dir3
├── file_in_root.ext
└── README.md

3 directories, 7 files

Markdown tree command:

$ ./tree-md .
# Project tree

.
 * [tree-md](./tree-md)
 * [dir2](./dir2)
   * [file21.ext](./dir2/file21.ext)
   * [file22.ext](./dir2/file22.ext)
   * [file23.ext](./dir2/file23.ext)
 * [dir1](./dir1)
   * [file11.ext](./dir1/file11.ext)
   * [file12.ext](./dir1/file12.ext)
 * [file_in_root.ext](./file_in_root.ext)
 * [README.md](./README.md)
 * [dir3](./dir3)

Rendered result:

(Links are not visible in Stackoverflow...)

Project tree

• tree-md
• dir2
  • file21.ext
  • file22.ext
  • file23.ext
• dir1
  • file11.ext
  • file12.ext
• file_in_root.ext
• README.md
• dir3

Not directly, no. You'd have to hand create it and put it in yourself. Assuming you are using a *nix box locally and are using utf, then tree will generate it nicely (I believe that is what generated the example you used above).

Assuming you mean the readme.md as the documentation target, then I think the only way you could automate it would be a git pre-commit hook that ran tree and embedded it into your readme file. You'd want to do a diff to make sure you only updated the readme if the output changed.

Otoh if you are maintaining seperate docs via github pages, then what you could do, is switch to using jekyll (or another generator) locally and pushing the static pages yourself. Then you could potentially implement the changes you want either as a plugin / shell script* / manual changes (if they won't vary much), or use the same method as above.

*If you integrate it into a commit hook, you can avoid adding any extra steps to changing your pages.

I made a node module to automate this task: mddir

Usage

node mddir "../relative/path/"

To install: npm install mddir -g

To generate markdown for current directory: mddir

To generate for any absolute path: mddir /absolute/path

To generate for a relative path: mddir ~/Documents/whatever.

The md file gets generated in your working directory.

Currently ignores node_modules, and .git folders.

Troubleshooting

If you receive the error 'node\r: No such file or directory', the issue is that your operating system uses different line endings and mddir can't parse them without you explicitly setting the line ending style to Unix. This usually affects Windows, but also some versions of Linux. Setting line endings to Unix style has to be performed within the mddir npm global bin folder.

Line endings fix

Get npm bin folder path with:

npm config get prefix

Cd into that folder

brew install dos2unix

dos2unix lib/node_modules/mddir/src/mddir.js

This converts line endings to Unix instead of Dos

Then run as normal with: node mddir "../relative/path/".

Example generated markdown file structure 'directoryList.md'

    |-- .bowerrc
    |-- .jshintrc
    |-- .jshintrc2
    |-- Gruntfile.js
    |-- README.md
    |-- bower.json
    |-- karma.conf.js
    |-- package.json
    |-- app
        |-- app.js
        |-- db.js
        |-- directoryList.md
        |-- index.html
        |-- mddir.js
        |-- routing.js
        |-- server.js
        |-- _api
            |-- api.groups.js
            |-- api.posts.js
            |-- api.users.js
            |-- api.widgets.js
        |-- _components
            |-- directives
                |-- directives.module.js
                |-- vendor
                    |-- directive.draganddrop.js
            |-- helpers
                |-- helpers.module.js
                |-- proprietary
                    |-- factory.actionDispatcher.js
            |-- services
                |-- services.cardTemplates.js
                |-- services.cards.js
                |-- services.groups.js
                |-- services.posts.js
                |-- services.users.js
                |-- services.widgets.js
        |-- _mocks
            |-- mocks.groups.js
            |-- mocks.posts.js
            |-- mocks.users.js
            |-- mocks.widgets.js

The best way to do this is to surround your tree in the triple backticks to denote a code block. For more info, see the markdown docs: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#code

Here is a useful git alias that works for me.

git config --global alias.tree '! git ls-tree --full-name --name-only -t -r HEAD | sed -e "s/[^-][^\/]*\//   |/g" -e "s/|\([^ ]\)/|-- \1/"'

Here is the output of git tree

jonavon@XPS13:~/projects/roman-numerals$ git tree
.gitignore
pom.xml
src
   |-- main
   |   |-- java
   |   |   |-- com
   |   |   |   |-- foxguardsolutions
   |   |   |   |   |-- jonavon
   |   |   |   |   |   |-- AbstractFile.java
   |   |   |   |   |   |-- roman
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- Main.java
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- Numeral.java
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- RomanNumberInputFile.java
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- RomanNumeralToDecimalEvaluator.java
   |-- test
   |   |-- java
   |   |   |-- com
   |   |   |   |-- foxguardsolutions
   |   |   |   |   |-- jonavon
   |   |   |   |   |   |-- roman
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- InterpretSteps.java
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- RunCukesTest.java
   |   |-- resources
   |   |   |-- com
   |   |   |   |-- foxguardsolutions
   |   |   |   |   |-- jonavon
   |   |   |   |   |   |-- roman
   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-- Interpret.feature
   |   |   |-- sample-input.txt

The comparable tree command

jonavon@XPS13:~/projects/roman-numerals$ tree -n
.
├── pom.xml
├── src
│   ├── main
│   │   └── java
│   │       └── com
│   │           └── foxguardsolutions
│   │               └── jonavon
│   │                   ├── AbstractFile.java
│   │                   └── roman
│   │                       ├── Main.java
│   │                       ├── Numeral.java
│   │                       ├── RomanNumberInputFile.java
│   │                       └── RomanNumeralToDecimalEvaluator.java
│   └── test
│       ├── java
│       │   └── com
│       │       └── foxguardsolutions
│       │           └── jonavon
│       │               └── roman
│       │                   ├── InterpretSteps.java
│       │                   └── RunCukesTest.java
│       └── resources
│           ├── com
│           │   └── foxguardsolutions
│           │       └── jonavon
│           │           └── roman
│           │               └── Interpret.feature
│           └── sample-input.txt
└── target
    ├── classes
    │   └── com
    │       └── foxguardsolutions
    │           └── jonavon
    │               ├── AbstractFile.class
    │               └── roman
    │                   ├── Main.class
    │                   ├── Numeral.class
    │                   ├── RomanNumberInputFile.class
    │                   └── RomanNumeralToDecimalEvaluator.class
    ├── generated-sources
    │   └── annotations
    └── maven-status
        └── maven-compiler-plugin
            └── compile
                └── default-compile
                    ├── createdFiles.lst
                    └── inputFiles.lst

30 directories, 17 files

Clearly tree has better output, but I like this way because it only shows the relevant source files and not the .git directory and compiled binaries.