1git-cat-file(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-cat-file - Provide content or type and size information for repository objects 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git cat-file' (-t [--allow-unknown-type]| -s [--allow-unknown-type]| -e | -p | <type> | --textconv ) <object> 13'git cat-file' (--batch | --batch-check) [--follow-symlinks] < <list-of-objects> 14 15DESCRIPTION 16----------- 17In its first form, the command provides the content or the type of an object in 18the repository. The type is required unless '-t' or '-p' is used to find the 19object type, or '-s' is used to find the object size, or '--textconv' is used 20(which implies type "blob"). 21 22In the second form, a list of objects (separated by linefeeds) is provided on 23stdin, and the SHA-1, type, and size of each object is printed on stdout. 24 25OPTIONS 26------- 27<object>:: 28 The name of the object to show. 29 For a more complete list of ways to spell object names, see 30 the "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in linkgit:gitrevisions[7]. 31 32-t:: 33 Instead of the content, show the object type identified by 34 <object>. 35 36-s:: 37 Instead of the content, show the object size identified by 38 <object>. 39 40-e:: 41 Suppress all output; instead exit with zero status if <object> 42 exists and is a valid object. 43 44-p:: 45 Pretty-print the contents of <object> based on its type. 46 47<type>:: 48 Typically this matches the real type of <object> but asking 49 for a type that can trivially be dereferenced from the given 50 <object> is also permitted. An example is to ask for a 51 "tree" with <object> being a commit object that contains it, 52 or to ask for a "blob" with <object> being a tag object that 53 points at it. 54 55--textconv:: 56 Show the content as transformed by a textconv filter. In this case, 57 <object> has be of the form <tree-ish>:<path>, or :<path> in order 58 to apply the filter to the content recorded in the index at <path>. 59 60--batch:: 61--batch=<format>:: 62 Print object information and contents for each object provided 63 on stdin. May not be combined with any other options or arguments. 64 See the section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 65 66--batch-check:: 67--batch-check=<format>:: 68 Print object information for each object provided on stdin. May 69 not be combined with any other options or arguments. See the 70 section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 71 72--buffer:: 73 Normally batch output is flushed after each object is output, so 74 that a process can interactively read and write from 75 `cat-file`. With this option, the output uses normal stdio 76 buffering; this is much more efficient when invoking 77 `--batch-check` on a large number of objects. 78 79--allow-unknown-type:: 80 Allow -s or -t to query broken/corrupt objects of unknown type. 81 82--follow-symlinks:: 83 With --batch or --batch-check, follow symlinks inside the 84 repository when requesting objects with extended SHA-1 85 expressions of the form tree-ish:path-in-tree. Instead of 86 providing output about the link itself, provide output about 87 the linked-to object. If a symlink points outside the 88 tree-ish (e.g. a link to /foo or a root-level link to ../foo), 89 the portion of the link which is outside the tree will be 90 printed. 91+ 92This option does not (currently) work correctly when an object in the 93index is specified (e.g. `:link` instead of `HEAD:link`) rather than 94one in the tree. 95+ 96This option cannot (currently) be used unless `--batch` or 97`--batch-check` is used. 98+ 99For example, consider a git repository containing: 100+ 101-- 102 f: a file containing "hello\n" 103 link: a symlink to f 104 dir/link: a symlink to ../f 105 plink: a symlink to ../f 106 alink: a symlink to /etc/passwd 107-- 108+ 109For a regular file `f`, `echo HEAD:f | git cat-file --batch` would print 110+ 111-- 112 ce013625030ba8dba906f756967f9e9ca394464a blob 6 113-- 114+ 115And `echo HEAD:link | git cat-file --batch --follow-symlinks` would 116print the same thing, as would `HEAD:dir/link`, as they both point at 117`HEAD:f`. 118+ 119Without `--follow-symlinks`, these would print data about the symlink 120itself. In the case of `HEAD:link`, you would see 121+ 122-- 123 4d1ae35ba2c8ec712fa2a379db44ad639ca277bd blob 1 124-- 125+ 126Both `plink` and `alink` point outside the tree, so they would 127respectively print: 128+ 129-- 130 symlink 4 131 ../f 132 133 symlink 11 134 /etc/passwd 135-- 136 137 138OUTPUT 139------ 140If '-t' is specified, one of the <type>. 141 142If '-s' is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes. 143 144If '-e' is specified, no output. 145 146If '-p' is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed. 147 148If <type> is specified, the raw (though uncompressed) contents of the <object> 149will be returned. 150 151BATCH OUTPUT 152------------ 153 154If `--batch` or `--batch-check` is given, `cat-file` will read objects 155from stdin, one per line, and print information about them. By default, 156the whole line is considered as an object, as if it were fed to 157linkgit:git-rev-parse[1]. 158 159You can specify the information shown for each object by using a custom 160`<format>`. The `<format>` is copied literally to stdout for each 161object, with placeholders of the form `%(atom)` expanded, followed by a 162newline. The available atoms are: 163 164`objectname`:: 165 The 40-hex object name of the object. 166 167`objecttype`:: 168 The type of of the object (the same as `cat-file -t` reports). 169 170`objectsize`:: 171 The size, in bytes, of the object (the same as `cat-file -s` 172 reports). 173 174`objectsize:disk`:: 175 The size, in bytes, that the object takes up on disk. See the 176 note about on-disk sizes in the `CAVEATS` section below. 177 178`deltabase`:: 179 If the object is stored as a delta on-disk, this expands to the 180 40-hex sha1 of the delta base object. Otherwise, expands to the 181 null sha1 (40 zeroes). See `CAVEATS` below. 182 183`rest`:: 184 If this atom is used in the output string, input lines are split 185 at the first whitespace boundary. All characters before that 186 whitespace are considered to be the object name; characters 187 after that first run of whitespace (i.e., the "rest" of the 188 line) are output in place of the `%(rest)` atom. 189 190If no format is specified, the default format is `%(objectname) 191%(objecttype) %(objectsize)`. 192 193If `--batch` is specified, the object information is followed by the 194object contents (consisting of `%(objectsize)` bytes), followed by a 195newline. 196 197For example, `--batch` without a custom format would produce: 198 199------------ 200<sha1> SP <type> SP <size> LF 201<contents> LF 202------------ 203 204Whereas `--batch-check='%(objectname) %(objecttype)'` would produce: 205 206------------ 207<sha1> SP <type> LF 208------------ 209 210If a name is specified on stdin that cannot be resolved to an object in 211the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format and print: 212 213------------ 214<object> SP missing LF 215------------ 216 217If --follow-symlinks is used, and a symlink in the repository points 218outside the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format 219and print: 220 221------------ 222symlink SP <size> LF 223<symlink> LF 224------------ 225 226The symlink will either be absolute (beginning with a /), or relative 227to the tree root. For instance, if dir/link points to ../../foo, then 228<symlink> will be ../foo. <size> is the size of the symlink in bytes. 229 230If --follow-symlinks is used, the following error messages will be 231displayed: 232 233------------ 234<object> SP missing LF 235------------ 236is printed when the initial symlink requested does not exist. 237 238------------ 239dangling SP <size> LF 240<object> LF 241------------ 242is printed when the initial symlink exists, but something that 243it (transitive-of) points to does not. 244 245------------ 246loop SP <size> LF 247<object> LF 248------------ 249is printed for symlink loops (or any symlinks that 250require more than 40 link resolutions to resolve). 251 252------------ 253notdir SP <size> LF 254<object> LF 255------------ 256is printed when, during symlink resolution, a file is used as a 257directory name. 258 259CAVEATS 260------- 261 262Note that the sizes of objects on disk are reported accurately, but care 263should be taken in drawing conclusions about which refs or objects are 264responsible for disk usage. The size of a packed non-delta object may be 265much larger than the size of objects which delta against it, but the 266choice of which object is the base and which is the delta is arbitrary 267and is subject to change during a repack. 268 269Note also that multiple copies of an object may be present in the object 270database; in this case, it is undefined which copy's size or delta base 271will be reported. 272 273GIT 274--- 275Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite