Turns a Markdown list into a directory structure. Very messy and not nearly enough safety checks (there are none) but it works for my use case

example.md

• animals
  • dogs
    • dog.rb
  • penguins
• humans
• cats.md

mdListToDir.rb

require 'fileutils'

dir_structure_file = ARGV[0]
tree = File.read(dir_structure_file)
tree = tree.split(/\n/)
tree_out = []

def put_out_tree tree
  tree.each do |item|
    put_out item
  end
end

def nested? line
  spaces = line[/\A */].size
  spaces > 0
end

def put_out file_or_dir
  if file_or_dir[:type] == :dir
    FileUtils.mkdir(file_or_dir[:path])
    put_out_tree file_or_dir[:children] if file_or_dir.key? :children
  else
    FileUtils.touch(file_or_dir[:path])
  end
end

last = nil
tree.each_with_index do |line, lineno|
  file_or_dir = line.gsub!(/-\s*/,"")
  
  if !File.extname(file_or_dir).empty?
    file_or_dir = {type: :file, raw_line: line, path: file_or_dir.gsub(/\s*/,"")}
  else
    file_or_dir = {type: :dir, raw_line: line, path: file_or_dir.gsub(/\s*/,""), children: []}
  end

  if nested? line
    parent = last
    parent = last[:parent] if parent[:raw_line][/\A */].size == line[/\A */].size # we are a sibling

    file_or_dir[:path]   = "#{parent[:path]}/#{file_or_dir[:path]}"
    file_or_dir[:parent] = parent
    
    parent[:children].push file_or_dir
  else
    tree_out.push file_or_dir
  end

  last = file_or_dir if file_or_dir[:type] == :dir
end

put_out_tree tree_out

usage.sh

$ ruby mdListToDir.rb example.md