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