Documentation / git-cat-file.txton commit Merge branch 'js/read-tree' (eb45415)
   1git-cat-file(1)
   2===============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-cat-file - Provide content or type information for repository objects
   7
   8
   9SYNOPSIS
  10--------
  11'git-cat-file' [-t | -s | -e | -p | <type>] <object>
  12
  13DESCRIPTION
  14-----------
  15Provides content or type of objects in the repository. The type
  16is required unless '-t' or '-p' is used to find the object type,
  17or '-s' is used to find the object size.
  18
  19OPTIONS
  20-------
  21<object>::
  22        The sha1 identifier of the object.
  23
  24-t::
  25        Instead of the content, show the object type identified by
  26        <object>.
  27
  28-s::
  29        Instead of the content, show the object size identified by
  30        <object>.
  31
  32-e::
  33        Suppress all output; instead exit with zero status if <object>
  34        exists and is a valid object.
  35
  36-p::
  37        Pretty-print the contents of <object> based on its type.
  38
  39<type>::
  40        Typically this matches the real type of <object> but asking
  41        for a type that can trivially be dereferenced from the given
  42        <object> is also permitted.  An example is to ask for a
  43        "tree" with <object> being a commit object that contains it,
  44        or to ask for a "blob" with <object> being a tag object that
  45        points at it.
  46
  47OUTPUT
  48------
  49If '-t' is specified, one of the <type>.
  50
  51If '-s' is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes.
  52
  53If '-e' is specified, no output.
  54
  55If '-p' is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed.
  56
  57Otherwise the raw (though uncompressed) contents of the <object> will
  58be returned.
  59
  60
  61Author
  62------
  63Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
  64
  65Documentation
  66--------------
  67Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
  68
  69GIT
  70---
  71Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
  72