PrintDirTree

printdirtree is a command-line utility that prints the structure of a directory tree, allowing you to easily specify files and directories to exclude.

You can now also print the contents of all files, which is very useful for prompting LLMs.

Example:

$ printdirtree
PrintDirTree
├── MANIFEST.in
├── README.md
├── printdirtree
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── __main__.py
└── setup.py

This tool is very useful to aid with prompting ChatGPT.

Installation

Install printdirtree easily with pip:

pip install printdirtree

Usage

To use printdirtree, simply run the command followed by optional arguments to tailor the output to your needs. The basic usage prints the current directory structure:

printdirtree

Specifying a Directory

To print the structure of a specific directory:

printdirtree --dir /path/to/directory

Excluding Directories and Files

Exclude specific directories and/or file patterns:

printdirtree --exclude-dir node_modules --exclude-dir .git --exclude-file "*.log"

Saving Preferences

To save your exclusions for future runs:

printdirtree --exclude-dir temp --exclude-file "*.tmp" --save

Viewing Current Exclusions

See what exclusions are currently saved:

printdirtree --view-exclusions

Including Directories and Files Back

To remove exclusions and include directories or files back into the printout:

printdirtree --include-dir temp --include-file "*.tmp" --save

Showing File Contents

To display both the directory structure and the contents of all files:

printdirtree --show-contents

This will output the directory tree followed by each file's contents with its relative path as a comment. For example:

temp
├── a.py
└── b.py

# temp/a.py
print("a.py")

# temp/b.py
print("b.py")

This is particularly useful when sharing code with LLMs, as it provides both structure and content in a clear, readable format.

Example Usage

After installing printdirtree, you can run it to visualize the structure of your project directory. Here's an example command that excludes .git files:

printdirtree --exclude-file ".git"

Output for the PrintDirTree project might look like this:

PrintDirTree
├── MANIFEST.in
├── README.md
├── printdirtree
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── __main__.py
└── setup.py