Provided by: tree_2.0.2-1_amd64 
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]
[--nolinks] [--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
output is to tty. With no arguments, tree lists the files in the current directory. When
directory 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 returns 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 All files are printed. By default tree does not print hidden files (those
beginning with a dot `.'). In no event does tree print the file system constructs
`.' (current directory) and `..' (previous directory).
-d List directories only.
-l Follows symbolic links if they point to directories, as if they were directories.
Symbolic links that will result in recursion are avoided when detected.
-f Prints the full path prefix for each file.
-x Stay on the current file-system only. Ala find -xdev.
-L level
Max display depth of the directory tree.
-R Recursively cross down the tree each level directories (see -L option), and at each
of them execute tree again adding `-o 00Tree.html' as a new option.
-P pattern
List only those files that match the wild-card pattern. You may have multiple -P
options. 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 single character not listed in brackets) and `|' separates
alternate patterns. A '/' at the end of the pattern matches directories, but not
files.
-I pattern
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 option 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
indentation 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) syntax.
-o filename
Send output to filename.
FILE OPTIONS
-q Print non-printable characters in filenames as question marks instead of the
default.
-N Print non-printable characters as is instead of as escaped octal numbers.
-Q Quote the names of files in double quotes.
-p Print the file type and permissions for each file (as per ls -l).
-u Print the username, or UID # if no username is available, of the file.
-g Print the group name, or GID # if no group name is available, of the file.
-s Print the size of each file in bytes along with the name.
-h Print the size of each file but in a more human readable way, e.g. appending a size
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 Print the date of the last modification time or if -c is used, the last status
change time for the file listed.
-F Append a `/' for directories, a `=' for socket files, a `*' for executable files, a
`>' 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 Sort the output by version.
-t Sort the output by last modification time instead of alphabetically.
-c Sort the output by last status change instead of alphabetically. Modifies the -D
option (if used) to print the last status change instead of modification time.
-U Do not sort. Lists files in directory order. Disables --dirsfirst.
-r Sort the output in reverse order. This is a meta-sort that alter the above sorts.
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 Makes tree not print the indentation lines, useful when used in conjunction with
the -f option. Also removes as much whitespace as possible when used with the -J
or -x options.
-A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation lines.
-S Turn on CP437 line graphics (useful when using Linux console mode fonts). This
option is now equivalent to `--charset=IBM437' and may eventually be depreciated.
-n Turn colorization off always, over-ridden by the -C option, however overrides
CLICOLOR_FORCE if present.
-C Turn colorization on always, using built-in color defaults if the LS_COLORS or
TREE_COLORS environment variables are not set. Useful to colorize output to a
pipe.
XML/JSON/HTML OPTIONS
-X Turn on XML output. Outputs the directory tree as an XML formatted file.
-J Turn on JSON output. Outputs the directory tree as a JSON formatted array.
-H baseHREF
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.domain/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 title
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 suitable 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
directory it is read and added to a stack of .info information. Each file is composed of
comments (lines starting with hash marks (#),) or wild-card patterns which may match a
file relative 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 terminated by a non-tab indented line. Multiple patterns, each to a line, may
share the same comment.
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).
TZ Timezone for timefmt output, see strftime(3).
STDDATA_FD Enable the stddata feature, optionally set descriptor to use.
AUTHOR
Steve Baker (ice@mama.indstate.edu)
HTML output hacked by Francesc Rocher (rocher@econ.udg.es)
Charsets and OS/2 support by Kyosuke Tokoro (NBG01720@nifty.ne.jp)
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
emitting 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
characters.
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
STDDATA_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), ls(1), find(1), du(1), strftime(3) gitignore(5)