Re: [PATCH v8 2/4] cat-file: teach cat-file a '--literally' option

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:27:44PM +0530, Karthik Nayak wrote:

Perhaps an example would help:

I cannot create a bad tree without --literally:

$ echo total garbage | ./git hash-object -t tree --stdin -w fatal: corrupt tree file $ echo total garbage | ./git hash-object -t tree --stdin -w --literally fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7

but I can use cat-file without --literally to query the contents and information about the object as it stands.

$ ./git cat-file tree fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 total garbage $ ./git cat-file -t fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 tree $ ./git cat-file -s fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 14

As far as I could tell - and please correct me if I've misunderstood, cat-file's literally is about dealing with unrecognized types whereas hash-object's --literally is about both creating objects with bad types and invalid objects of "recognized" types. This latter scenario is where the option name "literally" makes the most sense.

Charles.