Hey @alxpettit could you build this commit on your machine and tell me what you think of the output, and if it fits your need

Looks like a good start! :) I'm seeing a couple of problems with the output, though:

1. Color should probably be disabled by default when printing JSON, as it's intended to be parsed by another program
2. Erroneously prints malformed JSON expressions
3. Does not store in table format, making it very hard to meaningfully look up data.

I'll go over them in detail here.

Color

The color one seems pretty self explanatory. If we color the text, programs for parsing JSON may be confused by the character codes and introduce garbage into their own data. (EDIT: Although it just occurs to me now that it might change its behavior as it's being piped in, so this is probably fine.)

Erroneously prints malformed JSON expressions

Here, let's use the directory structure of the project directory as an example. If I run it in this directory path like so: cargo run -- --json --color=never, it gives me:

{"files":["drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 benches", ".rw-r--r-- 3.9k ada 10 Jan 17:09 build.rs", ".rw-r--r--  43k ada 10 Jan 17:09 Cargo.lock", ".rw-r--r-- 3.2k ada 10 Jan 17:09 Cargo.toml", ".rw-r--r--  31k ada 10 Jan 17:09 CHANGELOG.md", ".rw-r--r-- 2.5k ada 10 Jan 17:09 cliff.toml", ".rw-r--r-- 5.5k ada 10 Jan 17:09 CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 completions", ".rw-r--r-- 8.1k ada 10 Jan 17:09 CONTRIBUTING.md", ".rw-r--r-- 1.7k ada 10 Jan 17:09 deb.asc", ".rw-r--r--  12k ada 10 Jan 17:09 deny.toml", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 devtools", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 docs", ".rw-r--r-- 8.1k ada 10 Jan 17:09 flake.lock", ".rw-r--r-- 9.3k ada 10 Jan 17:09 flake.nix", ".rw-r--r-- 6.2k ada 10 Jan 17:09 INSTALL.md", ".rw-r--r-- 7.2k ada 10 Jan 17:09 Justfile", ".rw-r--r-- 1.1k ada 10 Jan 17:09 LICENCE", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 man", ".rw-r--r-- 2.6k ada 10 Jan 17:09 powertest.yaml", ".rw-r--r-- 7.9k ada 10 Jan 17:09 README.md", ".rw-r--r--  146 ada 10 Jan 17:09 rust-toolchain.toml", ".rw-r--r--   34 ada 10 Jan 17:09 rustfmt.toml", ".rw-r--r--  505 ada 10 Jan 17:09 SECURITY.md", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 snap", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 src", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:10 target", "drwxr-xr-x    - ada 10 Jan 17:09 tests", ".rw-r--r--  586 ada 10 Jan 17:09 treefmt.nix"]}}

This is super weird, because there's an extra } that shouldn't be there, given that the expression started with only one {. I tested it in Nushell, and it breaks eval when I try to import it as structured data.

Formatting

To make the structured data useful, the formatting should be in a table formation -- that's to say root-level list, with each entry being represented by key: value attribute relations. That way, programs know exactly what data they're trying to grab. I went ahead and formatted the project directory like so via Nushell (ls | to json | wl-copy, if you're curious). The result is here.

This is super weird, because there's an extra } that shouldn't be there, given that the expression started with only one {. I tested it in Nushell, and it breaks eval when I try to import it as structured data.

didnt catch that with jq well found

you understood color well

gonna try and implement the key one tho.

can you retry and tell me what do you think now, I made some updates

Hey just a heads up to everyone here

The recurse option is here 🎉

Can I have you all thought on it, and if you think --json --tree is needed