littlefs-tools

A comprehensive set of tools to create, inspect, modify, and extract littleFS filesystem images.

Though distributed as a Python module, these tools are intended to be executed as command-line tools. The invocation commands are provided below.

Attribution: littlefs_tools is built on top of littlefs-python. To use littleFS functionality within your Python code, use littlefs-python directly.

Installation

pip install littlefs_tools

For YAML config file support:

pip install littlefs_tools[config]

Requires Python 3.9 or later.

Quick Start

# Create an image from a directory
littlefs create -s my_files/ -i image.bin

# List contents (auto-detects block size and count)
littlefs list -i image.bin

# Extract to a directory
littlefs extract -i image.bin -d output/

# Show image metadata
littlefs info -i image.bin

# Read a single file
littlefs cat -i image.bin /config.json

Usage

Unified CLI

All commands are available under the littlefs command:

littlefs [-h] [--version] [--config CONFIG_FILE]
         {create,list,extract,info,cat,du,add,remove,rename,verify,diff,attr,gc,grow,repair} ...

Global options (available for all subcommands):

Image Creation and Modification

littlefs create

Package a directory into a littleFS binary image.

littlefs create -s <source_dir> -i <image_file> [options]

littlefs add

Add files or directories to an existing image.

littlefs add -i <image_file> -s <source1> [<source2> ...] [--dest /path/in/image]

littlefs remove

Remove files or directories from an image.

littlefs remove -i <image_file> /path/to/file [/path/to/file2 ...] [-r]

littlefs rename

Rename or move a file/directory within an image.

littlefs rename -i <image_file> /old/path /new/path

Image Inspection

littlefs list

List files in an image as a tree, JSON, or CSV.

littlefs list -i <image_file> [--format tree|json|csv]

littlefs info

Show image metadata (version, sizes, usage, limits).

littlefs info -i <image_file> [--format table|json]

littlefs cat

Print a file's contents from the image to stdout.

littlefs cat -i <image_file> /path/to/file [--binary]

littlefs du

Show per-directory disk usage.

littlefs du -i <image_file> [/start/path] [--format table|json]

littlefs diff

Compare two images and show differences.

littlefs diff <image1> <image2> [--format table|json]

Extraction

littlefs extract

Extract files from an image to a directory.

littlefs extract -i <image_file> -d <destination> [-f] [--file /path1 /path2] [--pattern "*.txt"]

Maintenance

littlefs verify

Validate image integrity (superblock, mount, file consistency).

littlefs verify -i <image_file>

littlefs gc

Run garbage collection on an image.

littlefs gc -i <image_file>

littlefs grow

Grow an image to a larger size.

littlefs grow -i <image_file> --new-block-count 128
littlefs grow -i <image_file> --new-size 512kb

littlefs repair

Repair an inconsistent image (runs mkconsistent).

littlefs repair -i <image_file>

Extended Attributes

littlefs attr

Get, set, or remove extended attributes on files.

littlefs attr -i <image_file> --action get --path /file.txt --type 0x42
littlefs attr -i <image_file> --action set --path /file.txt --type 0x42 --data 48656c6c6f
littlefs attr -i <image_file> --action remove --path /file.txt --type 0x42

Auto-Detection

For all read-oriented commands (list, extract, info, cat, du, verify, diff, add, remove, rename, gc, grow, repair, attr), the --block_size and --block_count options are optional. If omitted, they are automatically detected from the image's superblock. This means you can simply run:

littlefs list -i image.bin
littlefs info -i image.bin
littlefs cat -i image.bin /config.json

Config Files

Use --config to provide default options from a JSON or YAML file:

{
    "block_size": 4096,
    "block_count": 128,
    "offset": 0,
    "name_max": 128
}

littlefs create -s src/ -i out.bin --config littlefs.json

CLI arguments override config file values.

Legacy Commands

The original standalone commands are still available for backward compatibility:

littlefs_create -s <source_dir> -i <image_file> [options]
littlefs_list -i <image_file> [options]
littlefs_extract -i <image_file> -d <destination> [options]

Building the Package Locally

pip install build
python -m build

This produces both a source distribution and a wheel in the dist/ directory.

Install the built wheel:

pip install dist/littlefs_tools-*.whl

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, testing, and pull request guidelines.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a list of changes in each release.

About

This project was originally written as a simple CLI tool in the pre-AI era. Starting with version 1.2.0, it underwent a comprehensive AI-assisted modernization that restructured the codebase, added extensive tests, expanded the feature set, and improved documentation. The AI-assisted updates helped bring modern Python practices (type hints, proper packaging, CI/CD) and a significantly expanded feature set to the project while maintaining full backward compatibility.

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