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