R help - Oct 2013 - Use R to plot a directory tree

Dear all,

I was wondering whether (or better: how) I can use R to read recursively a
directory to get all the sub-folders and files located in the root folder and
put it into a tree like structure where the leaves are files and intermediate
nodes are the directories? The idea is that I'd like to plot the structure
of a certain root folder to be able to restructure the file system.

Any ideas on that? I was googling a lot but apparently I did not use the right
terms ("R tree folder" or "R tree directory" takes me mainly
to pages about the "R-tree" a structure for spatial access methods [at
least I learnt something new ;)])

Any pointer to the right function is highly appreciated.

Cheers,

Thorn Thaler 
NRC Lausanne
Applied Mathematics

A wild guess -- take a look at the CRAN "phylohenetics" task view, as
that sounds like the sort of thing that might have tree generation and
manipulation functions.

... but you may do better with some non-R tool out there.

(Hopefully, you'll get a better response, though).

Cheers,
Bert

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 6:13 AM, Thaler,Thorn,LAUSANNE,Applied
Mathematics <Thorn.Thaler at rdls.nestle.com>
wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I was wondering whether (or better: how) I can use R to read recursively a
directory to get all the sub-folders and files located in the root folder and
put it into a tree like structure where the leaves are files and intermediate
nodes are the directories? The idea is that I'd like to plot the structure
of a certain root folder to be able to restructure the file system.
>
> Any ideas on that? I was googling a lot but apparently I did not use the
right terms ("R tree folder" or "R tree directory" takes me
mainly to pages about the "R-tree" a structure for spatial access
methods [at least I learnt something new ;)])
>
> Any pointer to the right function is highly appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Thorn Thaler
> NRC Lausanne
> Applied Mathematics
>
> ______________________________________________
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.


-- 

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics

(650) 467-7374

On 10/24/2013 9:13 AM, Thaler,Thorn,LAUSANNE,Applied Mathematics
wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I was wondering whether (or better: how) I can use R to read recursively a
directory to get all the sub-folders and files located in the root folder and
put it into a tree like structure where the leaves are files and intermediate
nodes are the directories? The idea is that I'd like to plot the structure
of a certain root folder to be able to restructure the file system.
>
> Any ideas on that? I was googling a lot but apparently I did not use the
right terms ("R tree folder" or "R tree directory" takes me
mainly to pages about the "R-tree" a structure for spatial access
methods [at least I learnt something new ;)])
>
> Any pointer to the right function is highly appreciated.
>
In addition, or instead of, suggestions for plotting a file structure as 
a tree, you might consider a treemap (package of same name), which
was designed to show this more compactly, using nested rectangles
showing, e.g., file sizes or other attributes.

HTH


-- 
Michael Friendly     Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca
Professor, Psychology Dept. & Chair, Quantitative Methods
York University      Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814
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