Question

I need to recursively traverse a directory and create a tree to be used with the jsTree control. The control accepts a JSON format like so. I need some ruby magic to make this happen cleanly and quickly.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You probably want something like this (untested):

def directory_hash(path, name=nil)
  data = {:data => (name || path)}
  data[:children] = children = []
  Dir.foreach(path) do |entry|
    next if (entry == '..' || entry == '.')
    full_path = File.join(path, entry)
    if File.directory?(full_path)
      children << directory_hash(full_path, entry)
    else
      children << entry
    end
  end
  return data
end

Recursively walk down the tree, building up a hash. Turn it into json with your favourite serialisation library.