Help for package printtree

Type:

Package

Title:

Print Directory Trees for R Projects and Folders

Version:

0.2.0

Description:

Provides tools to print a compact, readable directory tree for a folder or project. The package can automatically detect common project roots (e.g., 'RStudio' '.Rproj' files) and formats output for quick inspection of code and data organization. It supports typical tree customizations such as limiting depth, excluding files using ignore patterns, and producing clean, aligned text output suitable for console use, reports, and reproducible documentation. A snapshot helper can also render the tree output to a PNG image for sharing in issues, teaching material, or project documentation.

License:

MIT + file LICENSE

URL:

https://github.com/PrigasG/printtree

BugReports:

https://github.com/PrigasG/printtree/issues

Suggests:

knitr, rmarkdown, spelling, testthat (≥ 3.0.0), withr

VignetteBuilder:

knitr

Config/testthat/edition:

Encoding:

UTF-8

Language:

en-US

RoxygenNote:

7.3.2

NeedsCompilation:

Packaged:

2026-01-26 13:31:57 UTC; garthur

Author:

George Arthur [aut, cre, cph]

Maintainer:

George Arthur <prigasgenthian48@gmail.com>

Repository:

CRAN

Date/Publication:

2026-01-30 10:50:07 UTC

Print an R Project or Directory Tree

Description

Prints a directory tree for a given path. Optionally detects an RStudio project (.Rproj) and can print from a project root.

Usage

print_rtree(
  path = NULL,
  ignore = c("renv", ".git", ".Rproj.user", "__pycache__", ".DS_Store", "node_modules",
    ".Rhistory"),
  max_depth = NULL,
  show_hidden = FALSE,
  project = c("auto", "root", "none"),
  search_paths = c(".", "..", "~/Documents", "~/Projects"),
  root_markers = c(".Rproj", "DESCRIPTION"),
  format = c("ascii", "unicode"),
  return_lines = FALSE,
  snapshot = FALSE,
  snapshot_file = "tree.png",
  snapshot_width = 800,
  snapshot_bg = c("white", "black"),
  snapshot_path = "."
)

Arguments

path

Character. Directory path, project name, or .Rproj file. If NULL, uses ".".

ignore

Character vector. Basenames to exclude (e.g., ".git", "renv").

max_depth

Integer. Maximum depth to traverse. NULL for unlimited.

show_hidden

Logical (TRUE/FALSE). Whether to include hidden files/directories (starting with ".").

project

One of "auto", "root", "none".

"auto": use path as-is (only resolves project name / .Rproj file)
"root": walk upward from path to find a project root (via root_markers) and use it if found
"none": never attempt root detection; print the tree from path

search_paths

Character vector. Used only when path is not an existing directory (treated as a project name). Paths are searched in order.

root_markers

Character vector. Markers used when project = "root" to detect a root directory. Special value ".Rproj" means "any file ending in .Rproj". Common markers include "DESCRIPTION" (R package root) and "_quarto.yml" (Quarto project root).

format

One of "ascii" or "unicode". "ascii" is portable for all terminals.

return_lines

Logical. If TRUE, invisibly return the printed character vector of lines.

snapshot

Logical. If TRUE, saves a PNG snapshot of the tree.

snapshot_file

Character. Snapshot PNG filename (or full path).

snapshot_width

Integer. PNG width in pixels.

snapshot_bg

One of "white" or "black" for snapshot background.

snapshot_path

Character. Directory to save snapshot_file in when snapshot_file is not absolute.

Value

Invisible NULL, or a character vector of printed lines if return_lines = TRUE.

Examples

demo <- file.path(tempdir(), "printtree-demo")
if (dir.exists(demo)) unlink(demo, recursive = TRUE)
dir.create(demo, recursive = TRUE)
dir.create(file.path(demo, "R"))
file.create(file.path(demo, "R", "hello.R"))
file.create(file.path(demo, "README.md"))

print_rtree(demo)
print_rtree(demo, max_depth = 1)

png_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".png")
print_rtree(demo, snapshot = TRUE, snapshot_file = png_file)