Render JSON to directory structure in Python

I would like to store a JSON structure which holds projects and files I am currently working on. File structure looks like this:

|-project1
|--sequence1
|----file1.ext
|----file2.ext
|-project2
|--sequence1
|----file1.ext
|----file2.ext
|-project3
|--sequence3
|----file1.ext
|----file2.ext


JSON version would look like this:

data = [

type: "folder",
name: "project1",
path: "/project1",
children: [

type: "folder",
name: "sequence1",
path: "/project1/sequence1",
children: [

type: "file",
name: "file1.ext",
path: "/project1/sequence1/file1.ext"
,
type: "file",
name: "file2.ext",
path: "/project1/sequence1/file2.ext"

...etc

]

]

]


Is it possible to render this structure to actual directories and files using Python? (it can be empty files). On the other hand, I would like to build a function traversing existing directories, returning similar JSON code.

2 Answers
2

This should be easy enough to create the dictionary using a recursive function and some of the goodies in the os module...:

os

import os

def dir_to_list(dirname, path=os.path.pathsep):
data =
for name in os.listdir(dirname):
dct =
dct['name'] = name
dct['path'] = path + name

full_path = os.path.join(dirname, name)
if os.path.isfile(fullpath):
dct['type'] = 'file'
elif os.path.isdir(fullpath):
dct['type'] = 'folder'
dct['children'] = dir_to_list(full_path, path=path + name + os.path.pathsep)
return data


^untested

Then you can just json.dump it to a file or json.dumps it to a string. . .

json.dump

json.dumps

If you happen to use Unix based system, you could use "tree" command

$ tree -Jd . > folderTemplate.json


or from Python:

import subprocess
data = subprocess.run(["tree", "-Jd", "/path/to/dir"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
print(data.stdout)


Then it would be simple to convert it back to directory structure with Python.
Maybe this might be helpful: https://github.com/tmdag/makedirtree

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