rmtree

NAME

rmtree - save and restore permissions of objects in a directory

SYNOPSIS

rmtree save [-C working_dir] [--files] [--dirs] rmtree apply [-C working_dir] [--files] [--dirs] [--dry-run] rmtree diff [-C working_dir] [--files] [--dirs] rmtree load rmtree help

DESCRIPTION

rmtree is a simple version of known tool mtree on *BSD system. The primary purpose of the tool is to save some basic attributes of objects in a directory to a text file and/or restore objects' properties from a standard input of attributes.

The tool only works on file system that supports following attributes:

- File mode (like 0644 on Linux)
- File owner
- File group

When the action save is used, the tool will scan the working directory for all files and directories, and read their properties and print in YAML format -- the readable format used by the action apply (or load.)

EXAMPLES

To back up objects' attributes to a file

rmtree save -C /path/to/working/dir | gzip -9c > backup.gz

To restore file permissions

zcat backup.gz | rmtree apply -C /path/to/working/dir

Save and load at the same time

rmtree save -C /this/dir/ | rmtree apply -C /that/dir/

To compare this directory with another one

rmtree save -C /this/dir | rmtree diff -C /that/dir

OPTIONS

Actions

help    Print some help messages
save    Scan for objects' attributes
apply   Apply attributes to objects in working directory
load    Load attribute data and print to STDOUT
diff    Compare STDIN with the working directory

Options

-d  --dry-run   Execute `apply` in dry-run mode

-C  --directory Set the working directory. The program will change
                to this directory before scanning/applying attributes.
                Default: current directory

-F  --files     Only work on files. When being used with 'diff',
                all directories in working directory are ignored.

-D  --dirs      Only work on directories. When being used with 'diff',
                all regular files in working directory are ignored.

--full-path     Print absolute path when 'saving'. As the output has
                the full paths, you may use the output for the action
                'apply' without specifying the working directory.
                (This also means that you can't apply the output to
                another directory.) By default, the program prints
                the relative paths.

-h  --help      Print help message

INSTALLATION

This ruby tool requires the rubygem 'slop' (for arguments parsing.) To build a rubygem, try gem build rmtree.gemspec.

To use this tool, simply make it executable (by chmod 755 rmtree.rb.) If the rubygem 'rmtree-x.y.z' was installed, the binary can be found in the binary directory of your gem environment. (Please run the command gem env | grep EXECUTABLE for details.)