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] 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 to be of the form <tree-ish>:<path>, or :<path> in 58 order to apply the filter to the content recorded in the index at 59 <path>. 60 61--batch:: 62--batch=<format>:: 63 Print object information and contents for each object provided 64 on stdin. May not be combined with any other options or arguments. 65 See the section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 66 67--batch-check:: 68--batch-check=<format>:: 69 Print object information for each object provided on stdin. May 70 not be combined with any other options or arguments. See the 71 section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 72 73--batch-all-objects:: 74 Instead of reading a list of objects on stdin, perform the 75 requested batch operation on all objects in the repository and 76 any alternate object stores (not just reachable objects). 77 Requires `--batch` or `--batch-check` be specified. Note that 78 the objects are visited in order sorted by their hashes. 79 80--buffer:: 81 Normally batch output is flushed after each object is output, so 82 that a process can interactively read and write from 83 `cat-file`. With this option, the output uses normal stdio 84 buffering; this is much more efficient when invoking 85 `--batch-check` on a large number of objects. 86 87--allow-unknown-type:: 88 Allow -s or -t to query broken/corrupt objects of unknown type. 89 90--follow-symlinks:: 91 With --batch or --batch-check, follow symlinks inside the 92 repository when requesting objects with extended SHA-1 93 expressions of the form tree-ish:path-in-tree. Instead of 94 providing output about the link itself, provide output about 95 the linked-to object. If a symlink points outside the 96 tree-ish (e.g. a link to /foo or a root-level link to ../foo), 97 the portion of the link which is outside the tree will be 98 printed. 99+ 100This option does not (currently) work correctly when an object in the 101index is specified (e.g. `:link` instead of `HEAD:link`) rather than 102one in the tree. 103+ 104This option cannot (currently) be used unless `--batch` or 105`--batch-check` is used. 106+ 107For example, consider a git repository containing: 108+ 109-- 110 f: a file containing "hello\n" 111 link: a symlink to f 112 dir/link: a symlink to ../f 113 plink: a symlink to ../f 114 alink: a symlink to /etc/passwd 115-- 116+ 117For a regular file `f`, `echo HEAD:f | git cat-file --batch` would print 118+ 119-- 120 ce013625030ba8dba906f756967f9e9ca394464a blob 6 121-- 122+ 123And `echo HEAD:link | git cat-file --batch --follow-symlinks` would 124print the same thing, as would `HEAD:dir/link`, as they both point at 125`HEAD:f`. 126+ 127Without `--follow-symlinks`, these would print data about the symlink 128itself. In the case of `HEAD:link`, you would see 129+ 130-- 131 4d1ae35ba2c8ec712fa2a379db44ad639ca277bd blob 1 132-- 133+ 134Both `plink` and `alink` point outside the tree, so they would 135respectively print: 136+ 137-- 138 symlink 4 139 ../f 140 141 symlink 11 142 /etc/passwd 143-- 144 145 146OUTPUT 147------ 148If `-t` is specified, one of the <type>. 149 150If `-s` is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes. 151 152If `-e` is specified, no output. 153 154If `-p` is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed. 155 156If <type> is specified, the raw (though uncompressed) contents of the <object> 157will be returned. 158 159BATCH OUTPUT 160------------ 161 162If `--batch` or `--batch-check` is given, `cat-file` will read objects 163from stdin, one per line, and print information about them. By default, 164the whole line is considered as an object, as if it were fed to 165linkgit:git-rev-parse[1]. 166 167You can specify the information shown for each object by using a custom 168`<format>`. The `<format>` is copied literally to stdout for each 169object, with placeholders of the form `%(atom)` expanded, followed by a 170newline. The available atoms are: 171 172`objectname`:: 173 The 40-hex object name of the object. 174 175`objecttype`:: 176 The type of of the object (the same as `cat-file -t` reports). 177 178`objectsize`:: 179 The size, in bytes, of the object (the same as `cat-file -s` 180 reports). 181 182`objectsize:disk`:: 183 The size, in bytes, that the object takes up on disk. See the 184 note about on-disk sizes in the `CAVEATS` section below. 185 186`deltabase`:: 187 If the object is stored as a delta on-disk, this expands to the 188 40-hex sha1 of the delta base object. Otherwise, expands to the 189 null sha1 (40 zeroes). See `CAVEATS` below. 190 191`rest`:: 192 If this atom is used in the output string, input lines are split 193 at the first whitespace boundary. All characters before that 194 whitespace are considered to be the object name; characters 195 after that first run of whitespace (i.e., the "rest" of the 196 line) are output in place of the `%(rest)` atom. 197 198If no format is specified, the default format is `%(objectname) 199%(objecttype) %(objectsize)`. 200 201If `--batch` is specified, the object information is followed by the 202object contents (consisting of `%(objectsize)` bytes), followed by a 203newline. 204 205For example, `--batch` without a custom format would produce: 206 207------------ 208<sha1> SP <type> SP <size> LF 209<contents> LF 210------------ 211 212Whereas `--batch-check='%(objectname) %(objecttype)'` would produce: 213 214------------ 215<sha1> SP <type> LF 216------------ 217 218If a name is specified on stdin that cannot be resolved to an object in 219the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format and print: 220 221------------ 222<object> SP missing LF 223------------ 224 225If --follow-symlinks is used, and a symlink in the repository points 226outside the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format 227and print: 228 229------------ 230symlink SP <size> LF 231<symlink> LF 232------------ 233 234The symlink will either be absolute (beginning with a /), or relative 235to the tree root. For instance, if dir/link points to ../../foo, then 236<symlink> will be ../foo. <size> is the size of the symlink in bytes. 237 238If --follow-symlinks is used, the following error messages will be 239displayed: 240 241------------ 242<object> SP missing LF 243------------ 244is printed when the initial symlink requested does not exist. 245 246------------ 247dangling SP <size> LF 248<object> LF 249------------ 250is printed when the initial symlink exists, but something that 251it (transitive-of) points to does not. 252 253------------ 254loop SP <size> LF 255<object> LF 256------------ 257is printed for symlink loops (or any symlinks that 258require more than 40 link resolutions to resolve). 259 260------------ 261notdir SP <size> LF 262<object> LF 263------------ 264is printed when, during symlink resolution, a file is used as a 265directory name. 266 267CAVEATS 268------- 269 270Note that the sizes of objects on disk are reported accurately, but care 271should be taken in drawing conclusions about which refs or objects are 272responsible for disk usage. The size of a packed non-delta object may be 273much larger than the size of objects which delta against it, but the 274choice of which object is the base and which is the delta is arbitrary 275and is subject to change during a repack. 276 277Note also that multiple copies of an object may be present in the object 278database; in this case, it is undefined which copy's size or delta base 279will be reported. 280 281GIT 282--- 283Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite