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