Ascii Tree

A command line tool for drawing tree structures with ascii characters.

• Ascii Tree
  • Usage
    • Input From File
    • Horizontal Tree
    • Vertical Tree
      • Virtual Tree Styles
      • Virtual Tree Maximum Label Width
      • Virtual Tree Horizontal Spacing
  • Development

Usage

Install from crates.io https://crates.io/crates/astree:

cargo install astree

Check out the help message:

$ astree -h    
A command line tool for drawing tree structures with ascii characters

Usage: astree <COMMAND>

Commands:
  vertical    Print the tree virtually
  horizontal  Print the tree horizontally
  help        Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help information (use `--help` for more detail)
  -V, --version  Print version information

For example, we can use it like this:

astree horizontal -i "$(cat << 'EOF'
# Root
## Child 1
### Grandchild 1
### Grandchild 2
EOF
)"

Here, each additional # indicates a nested child.

Output:

Root
└─ Child 1
   ├─ Grandchild 1
   └─ Grandchild 2

Input From File

Alternatively, we can also save the markdown file, such as tree.md.

# Root
## Child 1
### Grandchild 1
### Grandchild 2

And invoke the command like so:

astree horizontal -i tree.md

Output:

Root
└─ Child 1
   ├─ Grandchild 1
   └─ Grandchild 2

Horizontal Tree

Example of drawing a horizontal tree:

$ astree horizontal -i examples/with_grandchildren_0.md
Root
├─ Child 1
│  ├─ Grandchild 1.1
│  └─ Grandchild 1.2
├─ Child 2
│  └─ Child 2.1
└─ Child 3

Example of drawing a tree with multiple root nodes:

$ astree horizontal -i examples/multi_tree.md          
.
├─ Root 1
│  ├─ Child 1.1
│  │  ├─ Grandchild 1.1.1
│  │  └─ Grandchild 1.1.2
│  └─ Child 1.2
└─ Root 2
   └─ Child 2.1

Vertical Tree

Example of drawing a vertical tree:

astree vertical --input examples/with_grandchildren_1.md
             ┌──────┐
             │ Root │
             └──┬───┘
           ┌────┴────┐
           │ Child 1 │
           └────┬────┘
       ┌────────┴────────┐
┌──────┴───────┐  ┌──────┴───────┐
│ Grandchild 1 │  │ Grandchild 2 │
└──────────────┘  └──────────────┘

Example of drawing a forest with multiple root nodes:

$ astree vertical -i examples/multi_tree.md    
                               ┌────────┐                
                               │ Root 1 │                
                               └───┬────┘                
                    ┌──────────────┴──────────────┐      
              ┌─────┴─────┐                 ┌─────┴─────┐
              │ Child 1.1 │                 │ Child 1.2 │
              └─────┬─────┘                 └───────────┘
         ┌──────────┴──────────┐                         
┌────────┴─────────┐  ┌────────┴─────────┐               
│ Grandchild 1.1.1 │  │ Grandchild 1.1.2 │               
└──────────────────┘  └──────────────────┘               
  ┌────────┐ 
  │ Root 2 │ 
  └───┬────┘ 
┌─────┴─────┐
│ Child 2.1 │
└───────────┘

Virtual Tree Styles

With thick lines:

astree vertical --input examples/with_grandchildren_1.md --style thick
             ┏━━━━━━┓
             ┃ Root ┃
             ┗━━┳━━━┛
           ┏━━━━┻━━━━┓
           ┃ Child 1 ┃
           ┗━━━━┳━━━━┛
       ┏━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━┓
┏━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┓  ┏━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┓
┃ Grandchild 1 ┃  ┃ Grandchild 2 ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛  ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

With double lines:

astree vertical --input examples/with_grandchildren_1.md --style double
             ╔══════╗
             ║ Root ║
             ╚══╦═══╝
           ╔════╩════╗
           ║ Child 1 ║
           ╚════╦════╝
       ╔════════╩════════╗
╔══════╩═══════╗  ╔══════╩═══════╗
║ Grandchild 1 ║  ║ Grandchild 2 ║
╚══════════════╝  ╚══════════════╝

With chest style:

astree vertical --input examples/with_grandchildren_2.md --style chest
                       ╔━━━━━━╗
                       ┃ Root ┃
                       ╚━━┳━━━╝
              ╔━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━╗
          ╔━━━┻━━━╗               ╔━━━┻━━━╗
          ┃ Left  ┃               ┃ Right ┃
          ┃ Child ┃               ┃ Child ┃
          ╚━━━┳━━━╝               ╚━━━┳━━━╝
      ╔━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━╗         ╔━━━━━┻━━━━━━╗
╔━━━━━┻━━━━━━╗  ╔━━━━━┻━━━━━━╗  ┃   Right    ┃
┃ Grandchild ┃  ┃ Grandchild ┃  ┃ Grandchild ┃
┃    (1)     ┃  ┃    (2)     ┃  ╚━━━━━━━━━━━━╝
╚━━━━━━━━━━━━╝  ╚━━━━━━━━━━━━╝

With balloon style:

astree vertical --input examples/with_children_2.md --style balloon2
   ╭───────────╮
   │ Root Node │
   ╰─────¤─────╯
    ╭────┴─────╮
╭───¤───╮  ╭───¤───╮
│ Child │  │ Child │
│  (1)  │  │  (2)  │
╰───────╯  ╰───────╯

Virtual Tree Maximum Label Width

To specify the maximum width of the label with --width <WIDTH>. For example:

astree vertical --input examples/with_long_label.md --width 10
     ┌──────────┐      
     │ A Simple │      
     │   Root   │      
     └────┬─────┘      
    ┌─────┴──────┐     
┌───┴────┐  ┌────┴────┐
│ A long │  │ Another │
│ child  │  │  long   │
└────────┘  │  child  │
            └─────────┘

Virtual Tree Horizontal Spacing

By default, there is a two-spaces gap between boxes. This can be set with --spacing <SPACING>.

astree vertical --input examples/with_many_children.md --width 10 --spacing 0
               ┌──────────┐                 
               │ A Simple │                 
               │   Root   │                 
               └────┬─────┘                 
    ┌──────────┬────┴─────┬──────────┐      
┌───┴────┐┌────┴────┐┌────┴────┐┌────┴─────┐
│ A long ││ Another ││ A third ││ One more │
│ child  ││  long   ││  child  ││  child   │
└────────┘│  child  │└─────────┘└──────────┘
          └─────────┘                       

astree vertical --input examples/with_many_children.md --width 10 --spacing 10
         ┌──────────┐          
         │ A Simple │          
         │   Root   │          
         └────┬─────┘          
    ┌─────────┴──────────┐     
┌───┴────┐          ┌────┴────┐
│ A long │          │ Another │
│ child  │          │  long   │
└────────┘          │  child  │
                    └─────────┘

Development

See development.md.