# Subject: Something like cat-file for the index? 3 messages from 2014-01-10 to 2014-01-10. Participants: Enno Weichert, Thomas Gummerer. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/35632 ## Enno Weichert, 2014-01-10 11:53 Subject: Subject: Something like cat-file for the index? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CABtFQN6n_FKTfGt1ubkL51t8n_iJ0vcYW4ZEYLOkAsFNCq0GQw%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi, I'd like to have a more technical look into the index file and what/how it stores data; call it educational spelunking. I know the index-format.txt but I'd really like to save me the work to implement a pretty-printed output based on it. I know ls-files but that's obviously not the whole thing. So: is there something like cat-file, that basically gives me a readable version of the information (version number and all...) in the index already implemented or did nobody care until now? ``` ## Thomas Gummerer, 2014-01-10 12:58 Subject: Re: Subject: Something like cat-file for the index? Message-ID: <871u0g2dtn.fsf@gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/871u0g2dtn.fsf%40gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, Enno Weichert writes: > Hi, > > I'd like to have a more technical look into the index file and what/how it > stores data; call it educational spelunking. > > I know the index-format.txt but I'd really like to save me the work to > implement a pretty-printed output based on it. > I know ls-files but that's obviously not the whole thing. > > So: is there something like cat-file, that basically gives me a readable > version of the information (version number and all...) in the index already > implemented or did nobody care until now? You can use `git ls-files --debug` and `git ls-files --stage` to get all the information about the files in the index. The meaning of the flags is the only thing that's not shown by the command, and I don't think there is a tool yet to examine them. The undocumented --resolve-undo flag to git ls-files shows you the resolve undo data that is stored in the index. If you build git yourself, the `test-dump-cache-tree` helper can be used to show all information about the cache-tree that is stored in the index. The you can get the version of the index either by using `test-index-version` when you build git yourself, or by using `file .git/index`, which in addition will give you the number of entries that are in the index. -- Thomas ``` ## Enno Weichert, 2014-01-10 14:27 Subject: Re: Subject: Something like cat-file for the index? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CABtFQN4q9un81W3G-o7tbG3-LUSEf2YdP0e9zP84JGYu6qwOfw%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <871u0g2dtn.fsf@gmail.com> ``` Thank you :) On 1/10/14, Thomas Gummerer wrote: > > Hi, > > Enno Weichert writes: >> Hi, >> >> I'd like to have a more technical look into the index file and what/how >> it >> stores data; call it educational spelunking. >> >> I know the index-format.txt but I'd really like to save me the work to >> implement a pretty-printed output based on it. >> I know ls-files but that's obviously not the whole thing. >> >> So: is there something like cat-file, that basically gives me a readable >> version of the information (version number and all...) in the index >> already >> implemented or did nobody care until now? > > You can use `git ls-files --debug` and `git ls-files --stage` to get all > the information about the files in the index. The meaning of the flags > is the only thing that's not shown by the command, and I don't think > there is a tool yet to examine them. > > The undocumented --resolve-undo flag to git ls-files shows you the > resolve undo data that is stored in the index. > > If you build git yourself, the `test-dump-cache-tree` helper can be used > to show all information about the cache-tree that is stored in the > index. > > The you can get the version of the index either by using > `test-index-version` when you build git yourself, or by using `file > .git/index`, which in addition will give you the number of entries that > are in the index. > > -- > Thomas > ```