What the script is for
tree-to-file.sh is for the situations where you need to quickly export the current directory structure into a plain text file without manually composing tree commands for each host.
It is especially useful when you want to hand over a server, describe a project layout in an issue, or feed a clean file tree into an AI workflow before deeper analysis starts.
What happened on the CentOS 7 run
In the CentOS 7 example, the host did not have tree installed yet, so the script first detected the missing command and then tried the available package manager path automatically.
Because yum was available, the script installed tree from the configured repository, completed the package transaction successfully, and then continued to write the final directory structure into tree.txt.
- Command used: `curl -fsSL helper.sh/tree-to-file.sh | sh`
- Auto-detected package tool: `yum`
- Installed package: `tree-1.6.0-10.el7.x86_64`
- Final output: `Wrote tree structure to tree.txt`
Recommended usage pattern
If you only want the default export, running the one-liner is enough. If you want a stable ignore rule for repeated use, download the script once and pass both the output filename and the ignore pattern explicitly.
That second mode is better for documentation, operations handoff, and repeatable support steps because the final command shows exactly which paths are being filtered out.
- Quick run: `curl -fsSL helper.sh/tree-to-file.sh | sh`
- Repeatable run: `sh tree-to-file.sh tree.txt 'venv|__pycache__|.git|.gitignore|docker|node_modules|.idea'`
- Check the result file before sending it outside the team