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 | --filters ) <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` or 20`--filters` is used (which imply 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--filters:: 62 Show the content as converted by the filters configured in 63 the current working tree for the given <path> (i.e. smudge filters, 64 end-of-line conversion, etc). In this case, <object> has to be of 65 the form <tree-ish>:<path>, or :<path>. 66 67--batch:: 68--batch=<format>:: 69 Print object information and contents for each object provided 70 on stdin. May not be combined with any other options or arguments. 71 See the section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 72 73--batch-check:: 74--batch-check=<format>:: 75 Print object information for each object provided on stdin. May 76 not be combined with any other options or arguments. See the 77 section `BATCH OUTPUT` below for details. 78 79--batch-all-objects:: 80 Instead of reading a list of objects on stdin, perform the 81 requested batch operation on all objects in the repository and 82 any alternate object stores (not just reachable objects). 83 Requires `--batch` or `--batch-check` be specified. Note that 84 the objects are visited in order sorted by their hashes. 85 86--buffer:: 87 Normally batch output is flushed after each object is output, so 88 that a process can interactively read and write from 89 `cat-file`. With this option, the output uses normal stdio 90 buffering; this is much more efficient when invoking 91 `--batch-check` on a large number of objects. 92 93--allow-unknown-type:: 94 Allow -s or -t to query broken/corrupt objects of unknown type. 95 96--follow-symlinks:: 97 With --batch or --batch-check, follow symlinks inside the 98 repository when requesting objects with extended SHA-1 99 expressions of the form tree-ish:path-in-tree. Instead of 100 providing output about the link itself, provide output about 101 the linked-to object. If a symlink points outside the 102 tree-ish (e.g. a link to /foo or a root-level link to ../foo), 103 the portion of the link which is outside the tree will be 104 printed. 105+ 106This option does not (currently) work correctly when an object in the 107index is specified (e.g. `:link` instead of `HEAD:link`) rather than 108one in the tree. 109+ 110This option cannot (currently) be used unless `--batch` or 111`--batch-check` is used. 112+ 113For example, consider a git repository containing: 114+ 115-- 116 f: a file containing "hello\n" 117 link: a symlink to f 118 dir/link: a symlink to ../f 119 plink: a symlink to ../f 120 alink: a symlink to /etc/passwd 121-- 122+ 123For a regular file `f`, `echo HEAD:f | git cat-file --batch` would print 124+ 125-- 126 ce013625030ba8dba906f756967f9e9ca394464a blob 6 127-- 128+ 129And `echo HEAD:link | git cat-file --batch --follow-symlinks` would 130print the same thing, as would `HEAD:dir/link`, as they both point at 131`HEAD:f`. 132+ 133Without `--follow-symlinks`, these would print data about the symlink 134itself. In the case of `HEAD:link`, you would see 135+ 136-- 137 4d1ae35ba2c8ec712fa2a379db44ad639ca277bd blob 1 138-- 139+ 140Both `plink` and `alink` point outside the tree, so they would 141respectively print: 142+ 143-- 144 symlink 4 145 ../f 146 147 symlink 11 148 /etc/passwd 149-- 150 151 152OUTPUT 153------ 154If `-t` is specified, one of the <type>. 155 156If `-s` is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes. 157 158If `-e` is specified, no output. 159 160If `-p` is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed. 161 162If <type> is specified, the raw (though uncompressed) contents of the <object> 163will be returned. 164 165BATCH OUTPUT 166------------ 167 168If `--batch` or `--batch-check` is given, `cat-file` will read objects 169from stdin, one per line, and print information about them. By default, 170the whole line is considered as an object, as if it were fed to 171linkgit:git-rev-parse[1]. 172 173You can specify the information shown for each object by using a custom 174`<format>`. The `<format>` is copied literally to stdout for each 175object, with placeholders of the form `%(atom)` expanded, followed by a 176newline. The available atoms are: 177 178`objectname`:: 179 The 40-hex object name of the object. 180 181`objecttype`:: 182 The type of of the object (the same as `cat-file -t` reports). 183 184`objectsize`:: 185 The size, in bytes, of the object (the same as `cat-file -s` 186 reports). 187 188`objectsize:disk`:: 189 The size, in bytes, that the object takes up on disk. See the 190 note about on-disk sizes in the `CAVEATS` section below. 191 192`deltabase`:: 193 If the object is stored as a delta on-disk, this expands to the 194 40-hex sha1 of the delta base object. Otherwise, expands to the 195 null sha1 (40 zeroes). See `CAVEATS` below. 196 197`rest`:: 198 If this atom is used in the output string, input lines are split 199 at the first whitespace boundary. All characters before that 200 whitespace are considered to be the object name; characters 201 after that first run of whitespace (i.e., the "rest" of the 202 line) are output in place of the `%(rest)` atom. 203 204If no format is specified, the default format is `%(objectname) 205%(objecttype) %(objectsize)`. 206 207If `--batch` is specified, the object information is followed by the 208object contents (consisting of `%(objectsize)` bytes), followed by a 209newline. 210 211For example, `--batch` without a custom format would produce: 212 213------------ 214<sha1> SP <type> SP <size> LF 215<contents> LF 216------------ 217 218Whereas `--batch-check='%(objectname) %(objecttype)'` would produce: 219 220------------ 221<sha1> SP <type> LF 222------------ 223 224If a name is specified on stdin that cannot be resolved to an object in 225the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format and print: 226 227------------ 228<object> SP missing LF 229------------ 230 231If --follow-symlinks is used, and a symlink in the repository points 232outside the repository, then `cat-file` will ignore any custom format 233and print: 234 235------------ 236symlink SP <size> LF 237<symlink> LF 238------------ 239 240The symlink will either be absolute (beginning with a /), or relative 241to the tree root. For instance, if dir/link points to ../../foo, then 242<symlink> will be ../foo. <size> is the size of the symlink in bytes. 243 244If --follow-symlinks is used, the following error messages will be 245displayed: 246 247------------ 248<object> SP missing LF 249------------ 250is printed when the initial symlink requested does not exist. 251 252------------ 253dangling SP <size> LF 254<object> LF 255------------ 256is printed when the initial symlink exists, but something that 257it (transitive-of) points to does not. 258 259------------ 260loop SP <size> LF 261<object> LF 262------------ 263is printed for symlink loops (or any symlinks that 264require more than 40 link resolutions to resolve). 265 266------------ 267notdir SP <size> LF 268<object> LF 269------------ 270is printed when, during symlink resolution, a file is used as a 271directory name. 272 273CAVEATS 274------- 275 276Note that the sizes of objects on disk are reported accurately, but care 277should be taken in drawing conclusions about which refs or objects are 278responsible for disk usage. The size of a packed non-delta object may be 279much larger than the size of objects which delta against it, but the 280choice of which object is the base and which is the delta is arbitrary 281and is subject to change during a repack. 282 283Note also that multiple copies of an object may be present in the object 284database; in this case, it is undefined which copy's size or delta base 285will be reported. 286 287GIT 288--- 289Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite