json2dir

json2dir Plugin

Convert JSON documents into directory structures — files, directories, symlinks, and executable scripts. Useful for managing dotfiles and configuration archives.

Commands

Data Conversion

• json2dir data convert — Convert JSON to directory structure

Utility

• json2dir self version — Print json2dir version
• json2dir _ _ — Passthrough to json2dir CLI

Usage Examples

• "Convert this JSON file into a directory structure"
• "Create dotfiles from this JSON configuration"
• "Unpack this JSON archive into files"
• "Generate a directory tree from JSON input"

Installation

cargo install json2dir

Conversion Scheme

• Strings → Regular files with the string as content
• Objects → Directories with keys as filenames
• Arrays ["link", "target"] → Symbolic links
• Arrays ["script", "#!/bin/sh\n..."] → Executable scripts

Examples

# Convert a JSON file to directory structure
json2dir data convert example-tree.json

# Pipe JSON from another command
cat config.json | json2dir data convert

# Create dotfiles from a JSON configuration
json2dir data convert dotfiles.json

Example JSON Input

{
  "greeting": "Hello, world!",
  "dir": {
    "subfile": "Content.\n",
    "subdir": {}
  },
  "symlink": ["link", "target path"],
  "script": ["script", "#!/bin/sh\necho Howdy!"]
}

This creates:

• greeting — regular file with "Hello, world!"
• dir/ — directory with subfile and subdir
• symlink → symbolic link to "target path"
• script — executable shell script

Key Features

• JSON to filesystem: Convert any JSON document into files and directories
• Symlink support: Create symbolic links with ["link", "target"] arrays
• Executable scripts: Create scripts with ["script", "#!/bin/sh\n..."] arrays
• Empty directories: Create empty directories with {}
• Dotfile management: Ideal for managing dotfiles with Nix or other tools
• Pipes-friendly: Reads from STDIN when no file is provided
• Configuration archives: Store entire directory trees as single JSON files

Notes

• The tool accepts any valid JSON document
• Objects are recursively traversed to create nested directory structures
• File contents are written exactly as provided in JSON strings
• Arrays with two elements are interpreted as symlinks or scripts based on the first element
• Works great in pipelines with tools that generate JSON (e.g., jq, yq)