Text::Tree(3)

📦
version 1.0 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43

💖 Text::Tree 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for Text::Tree, a lil Perl module from the User Contributed Perl Documentation collection. she takes a simple tree of strings and formats it into a textual tree graph — like, actual cute lil boxes and branches made of ASCII, fr fr. 🌳✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

Text::Tree — format a simple tree of strings into a textual tree graph. it's giving diagram energy, no cap. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

use Text::Tree;

my $tree = new Text::Tree( "root",
                           [ "left\nnode" ],
                           [ "right", [ "1" ], [ "2" ] ] );
print $tree->layout("boxed");

__OUTPUT__

    +----+
    |root|
    +----+
  .---^---.
+----+ +-----+
|left| |right|
|node| +-----+
+----+  .-^-.
       +-+ +-+
       |1| |2|
       +-+ +-+

like, look at her. she did that. 👑 the ASCII tree is genuinely iconic and i'm obsessed.

🎀 METHODS 🎀

💜 new()

my $tree = new Text::Tree( "label",
                           [ "left child label", [ ... ] ],
                           [ "right child label", [ ... ] );

creates a brand new tree object out of a nested set of array references, bestie. the rules are simple:

  • the first element of each array must be a string — that's your node label 🏷️
  • every element after that must be an array reference, and each one is a child of that node 🌱
  • labels can contain newlines to support multiple lines of text — so go off, multi-line queen 💅

🦋 layout()

my @lines = $tree->layout( "centered in boxes" );
print @lines;

lays the whole tree out into an array of newline-terminated strings, ready for printing or displaying. like, it does the whole glow-up for you. ✨

the optional style argument may contain various keywords such as 'center', 'box', 'line', 'oval' and/or 'space'. these style keywords affect how the tree nodes get formatted. mix and match, it's your world 🌈

🌼 DESCRIPTION 🌼

allows the caller to develop a tree structure using nested arrays of strings and references. once it's all developed, the whole tree can be printed as a diagram, with the root of the tree at the top and child nodes formatted horizontally below them. hierarchy? slay. 📊

the string labels are printed as-is, or optionally surrounded with a simple outlining style using printable ASCII characters. simple, clean, effective. periodt. 💖

this module may be used with object-oriented or simple function calls. versatility is the vibe, iykyk.

📜 HISTORY 📜

Mark Jason Dominus (aka MJD) asked for this functionality on his Expert-level "Perl Quiz of the Week" Number 5. you can find out more about the QOTW discussion forum at http://perl.plover.com/qotw/ — go look, bestie, it's lore. 📖

the central formatting routine was submitted by Ron Isaacson to the Quiz forum as one possible solution to the general problem. king behavior honestly. 👑

Ed Halley adapted the Ron Isaacson entry (with permission), to correct some tree structures not originally handled, and to allow more formatting options for the box styles. glow-up achieved. ✨

copyright stuff, bestie, gotta respect it:

  • Copyright 2003-2004 by Ron Isaacson
  • Portions Copyright 2003 by Mark Jason Dominus
  • Portions Copyright 2004 by Ed Halley

this library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. so like, free as in freedom, not free as in "no rules". 🫶

this page ships with perl v5.42.0 and it's dated 2025-07-25 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! go build a tree, format it in boxes, and be the main character of your own terminal. mwah 💋 🌈 ⭐ 🎀

📦 where this page comes from