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 | -s | -e | -p | <type>] <object> 13'git cat-file' [--batch | --batch-check] < <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. 20 21In the second form, a list of objects (separated by linefeeds) is provided on 22stdin, and the SHA1, type, and size of each object is printed on stdout. 23 24OPTIONS 25------- 26<object>:: 27 The name of the object to show. 28 For a more complete list of ways to spell object names, see 29 the "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in linkgit:git-rev-parse[1]. 30 31-t:: 32 Instead of the content, show the object type identified by 33 <object>. 34 35-s:: 36 Instead of the content, show the object size identified by 37 <object>. 38 39-e:: 40 Suppress all output; instead exit with zero status if <object> 41 exists and is a valid object. 42 43-p:: 44 Pretty-print the contents of <object> based on its type. 45 46<type>:: 47 Typically this matches the real type of <object> but asking 48 for a type that can trivially be dereferenced from the given 49 <object> is also permitted. An example is to ask for a 50 "tree" with <object> being a commit object that contains it, 51 or to ask for a "blob" with <object> being a tag object that 52 points at it. 53 54--batch:: 55 Print the SHA1, type, size, and contents of each object provided on 56 stdin. May not be combined with any other options or arguments. 57 58--batch-check:: 59 Print the SHA1, type, and size of each object provided on stdin. May not 60 be combined with any other options or arguments. 61 62OUTPUT 63------ 64If '-t' is specified, one of the <type>. 65 66If '-s' is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes. 67 68If '-e' is specified, no output. 69 70If '-p' is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed. 71 72If <type> is specified, the raw (though uncompressed) contents of the <object> 73will be returned. 74 75If '--batch' is specified, output of the following form is printed for each 76object specified on stdin: 77 78------------ 79<sha1> SP <type> SP <size> LF 80<contents> LF 81------------ 82 83If '--batch-check' is specified, output of the following form is printed for 84each object specified on stdin: 85 86------------ 87<sha1> SP <type> SP <size> LF 88------------ 89 90For both '--batch' and '--batch-check', output of the following form is printed 91for each object specified on stdin that does not exist in the repository: 92 93------------ 94<object> SP missing LF 95------------ 96 97Author 98------ 99Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 100 101Documentation 102-------------- 103Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 104 105GIT 106--- 107Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite