How do I use tree to show the path to filenames containing a particular string?

Question

I have got a rather large file system, and let's say that I want to find all the files and directories in a certain area of my file system which contain the String ActionListeener, and to do this I want to use tree. So if I do:

tree ~/ | grep ActionListeener

The result will be:

│   │   │           └── ActionListeener.class
│   │           └── ActionListeener.java

So I now know that these files do exist somewhere a little deeper into my file system, but I have no idea about which folder contains the sub-folder, which contains the sub-sub-folder, and so on, to the files.

So really my question is, how can I get the tree command (by maybe piping the output to something else) to show me the folder and path which leads me to those particular files which contain that String?

---

OS Information:

Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
Release:    15.04

Package Information:

tree:
  Installed: 1.7.0-3
  Candidate: 1.7.0-3
  Version table:
 *** 1.7.0-3 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Answer 1

Use tree's pattern matching (-P) in combination with --prune:

$ tree
.
├── archlinux-simplyblack
│   ├── angle-down.png
│   ├── archlinux.png
# snip
    ├── reboot.png
    ├── shutdown.png
    └── theme.conf

8 directories, 78 files
$ tree -P 'reboot*' --prune            
.
├── maui
│   └── reboot.png
└── maui-dark
    └── reboot.png

2 directories, 2 files

From man tree:

-P pattern
      List  only  those files that match the wild-card pattern.  Note:
      you must  use  the  -a  option  to  also  consider  those  files
      beginning   with  a  dot  `.'   for  matching.   Valid  wildcard
      operators are `*' (any zero or more characters), `?' (any single
      character),   `[...]'   (any  single  character  listed  between
      brackets (optional - (dash) for character range may be used: ex:
      [A-Z]),  and  `[^...]'  (any  single  character  not  listed  in
      brackets) and `|' separates alternate patterns.

--prune
      Makes  tree prune empty directories from the output, useful when
      used in conjunction with -P or -I.  See BUGS AND NOTES below for
      more information on this option.

Answer 2

Use the -f option of tree. From man tree:

-f Prints the full path prefix for each file.

So your command will be:

tree -f ~/ | grep 'ActionListeener'

Note that this will match ActionListeener anywhere in a line, so be precise in choosing in which directory you will run this.

Answer 3

Try tree -P '<your_regex_or_file_name>' <tree_root_directory> --prune

In your case: tree -P 'ActionListeener' ~ --prune