From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:06:24 GMT
Subject: Re: Exact format of tree objets
Message-ID: <loom.20130612T160455-551@post.gmane.org>
In-Reply-To: <7v4nd4bigv.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster <at> pobox.com> writes:
> Chico Sokol <chico.sokol <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Is there any official documentation of tree objets format? Are tree
> > objects encoded specially in some way? How can I parse the inflated
> > contents of a tree object?
> >
> > We're suspecting that there is some kind of special format or
> > encoding, because the command "git cat-file -p <sha>" show me ...
> > While "git cat-file tree <sha>" generate ...
> 
> "cat-file -p" is meant to be human-readable form.  The latter gives
> the exact byte contents read_sha1_file() sees, which is a binary
> format.  Essentially, it is a sequence of:
> 
>  - mode of the entry encoded in octal, without any leading '0' pad;
>  - pathname component of the entry, terminated with NUL;
>  - 20-byte SHA-1 object name.

I always wondered why this is the sole object format where SHA-1 is in 20-
byte binary format and not 40-chars hexadecimal string format...

-- 
Jakub Narębski