How to generate an html directory list using Python

Question

I am having some problems using Python to generate an html document. I am attempting to create an HTML list of a directory tree. This is what I have so far:

Answer 1

You could separate the directory tree generation and its rendering as html.

To generate the tree you could use a simple recursive function:

def make_tree(path):
    tree = dict(name=os.path.basename(path), children=[])
    try: lst = os.listdir(path)
    except OSError:
        pass #ignore errors
    else:
        for name in lst:
            fn = os.path.join(path, name)
            if os.path.isdir(fn):
                tree['children'].append(make_tree(fn))
            else:
                tree['children'].append(dict(name=name))
    return tree

To render it as html you could use jinja2's loop recursive feature:

{{ tree.name }}

{%- for item in tree.children recursive %}
    
{{ item.name }}
    {%- if item.children -%}
        
{{ loop(item.children) }}
    {%- endif %}
{%- endfor %}

Put the html into templates/dirtree.html file. To test it, run the following code and visit http://localhost:8888/:

import os
from flask import Flask, render_template

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def dirtree():
    path = os.path.expanduser(u'~')
    return render_template('dirtree.html', tree=make_tree(path))

if __name__=="__main__":
    app.run(host='localhost', port=8888, debug=True)