can borg list include folders without files?

[mlapaglia]

i am trying to create an archive browser that doesn't rely on borg mount. i'd like to get the files and folders at a specific path. i am having trouble creating a pattern that will return folders when they only have folders inside them.

Consider this archive:

borg list qwer::backup-20251003-022114
drwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia        0 Fri, 2025-09-05 21:53:18 mnt/c/backup-sources
drwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia        0 Tue, 2025-09-02 14:48:04 mnt/c/backup-sources/1990
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 11000310 Tue, 2023-08-15 15:01:14 mnt/backup-sources/1990/FastFoto_0489.tif

i am trying to get only the contents of the root of the repo, in this case /mnt would be the only thing returned.

these have no output:

borg list --json-lines \
  --pattern='+ pp:' \
  --pattern='- re:^[^/]+/.+' \
  qwer::backup-20251003-022114

borg list \
  --pattern '+ pf:mnt/' \
  --pattern '+ re:^mnt/[^/]+$' \
  --pattern '! re:^mnt/[^/]+/' \
  --pattern '- **' \
  qwer::backup-20251003-022114

 borg list --json-lines \
  --pattern='+ sh:mnt/*' \
  --pattern='- sh:mnt/*/*' \
qwer::backup-20251003-022114

when i try this on a folder that has files in it i get results:

  borg list \
  --pattern '+ pf:mnt/' \
  --pattern '+ re:^mnt/c/backup-sources/[^/]+$' \
  --pattern '! re:^mnt/c/backup-sources/[^/]+/' \
  --pattern '- **' \
  qwer::backup-20251003-022114
drwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia        0 Tue, 2025-09-02 14:48:04 mnt/c/backup-sources/1990
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 19647677 Mon, 2025-08-25 16:53:46 mnt/c/backup-sources/20250822-1713-13.5676762.mp4
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 541624376 Thu, 2025-08-14 06:01:00 mnt/c/backup-sources/LM-Studio-0.3.23-3-x64.exe
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 205668352 Tue, 2025-09-02 15:48:53 mnt/c/backup-sources/calibre-64bit-8.9.0.msi
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 869341120 Fri, 2025-07-25 18:37:21 mnt/c/backup-sources/577.00-desktop-win10-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe
-rwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia 592480176 Mon, 2025-07-28 15:37:05 mnt/c/backup-sources/Docker Desktop Installer.exe
drwxrwxrwx mlapaglia mlapaglia        0 Mon, 2025-09-01 19:54:36 mnt/c/backup-sources/testbackupsource

these output the entire archive

borg list \
  --pattern '+ *' \
  --pattern '- */*' \
  qwer::backup-20251003-022114

borg list --json-lines \
  --pattern='+ pp:mnt' \
  --pattern='- re:^mnt/[^/]+/.+' \
 qwer::backup-20251003-022114

is there a way to do this without traversing the whole archive to build up a virtual structure?

[ThomasWaldmann]

Guess it traverses the whole archive anyway, so you could list mode and path and then pick all "d" entries of whatever depth you like.