Software to output the flattened directory tree in a particular format

Question

What I'm looking for is some sort of software that is able to output to a text file the flattened directory tree/hierarchy, including any file in it. It's for backup purposes.

Say for example, I have D:\Software containing a couple of folders, D:\Software\Soft1 and D:\Software\Soft2, and a couple of files, D:\Software\Soft1\run1.exe and D:\Software\start.bin

The text file in output should look like this:

[D:\Software]

[D:\Software\Soft1]

[D:\Software\Soft1\run1.exe]

[D:\Software\Soft2]

[D:\Software\start.bin]

I hope I made it clear what I need.

Answer 1

From my understanding, given an input folder, you'd like to flatten the folder tree/hierarchy and write the result to a text file with the format you specified.

I've written a PowerShell script to achieve that.

Create a .ps1 text file (e.g. Flatten-Dir.ps1) with the following content:

param
(
    # The input/root folder to process
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [string]$InputFolder,

    # The output folder that will contain the flattened folder tree
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [string]$OutputFile
)

function recdir($InputFolder)
{
    Get-ChildItem -Path $InputFolder | foreach {
        if($_.Attributes -eq "Directory")
        {
            Write-Output ("[" + $_.FullName + "]`r`n")
            recdir $_.FullName
        }
        else
        {
            Write-Output ("[" + $_.FullName + "]`r`n")
        }
    }
}

Set-Content -Path $OutputFile -Force ("[" + $InputFolder + "]`r`n")
recdir $InputFolder | Add-Content -Path $OutputFile

Then run it in a PowerShell environment, providing the input folder you want to process, followed by the output file which will contain the flattened folder tree. For example:

Flatten-Dir.ps1 C:\tmp\Software C:\tmp\flattened_tree.txt

The script uses a custom recursive function in order to achieve that particular desired output. If anyone thinks there's a better/easier way to do it, let me know.

As a test, if this is the folder structure with some files...

... then this is what the script writes in the output file:

[C:\tmp\Software]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft1]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft1\run.exe]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft1\setting.ini]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft1\test.bat]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft2]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft2\Soft3]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft2\abc.txt]

[C:\tmp\Software\Soft2\def.htm]

[C:\tmp\Software\start.bin]