python - Represent directory tree as JSON

Question

Is there any easy way to generate such a JSON? I found os.walk() and os.listdir(), so I may do recursive descending into directories and build a python object, well, but it sounds like reinventing a wheel, maybe someone knows working code for such a task?

{
  "type": "directory",
  "name": "hello",
  "children": [
    {
      "type": "directory",
      "name": "world",
      "children": [
        {
          "type": "file",
          "name": "one.txt"
        },
        {
          "type": "file",
          "name": "two.txt"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "file",
      "name": "README"
    }
  ]
}

Answer 1

I don't think that this task is a "wheel" (so to speak). But it is something which you can easily achieve by means of the tools you mentioned:

import os
import json

def path_to_dict(path):
    d = {'name': os.path.basename(path)}
    if os.path.isdir(path):
        d['type'] = "directory"
        d['children'] = [path_to_dict(os.path.join(path,x)) for x in os.listdir
(path)]
    else:
        d['type'] = "file"
    return d

print json.dumps(path_to_dict('.'))