Git is a CAS, a kind of database, with a VCS on top of it. The CAS commands are plumbing commands that deal with this underlying database. The usual git {add,rm,commit}
commands are compound porcelain commands that build on top of these lower level commands.
This means that you can actually use the plumbing commands to manually add, remove, commit things. The "Git Internals" section of the handbook has great examples.
But I used git cat-file
to really investigate a lot of things. git cat-file -p
will determine the type of object before pretty catting it.
There are four Types of Objects: blob
, tree
, tag
, and commit
.
There are three areas: Working, Staging, and Repository.
Working -> Staging
- When you do
git diff
you are comparing Working to Staging. - When you
git add
you are adding stuff from the Working to Staging. git reset
does the reverse: moves changes back to Working.
Staging -> Respository
git diff --staged
compares Staging to Repository- When you
git commit
you are adding stuff from the Staging to Repository.
When you git rm
you are 'adding' the deletion from the Working to the Staging area. This is a small head-scratcher until you see the tree
object and note that the file(s) you just deleted are no longer referenced. That's ultimately what happens. The file blob is not deleted; it's part of git
forever (until you use some tool to parse history and remove it manually.)
Everything git writes is just a blob. There's no binary/text types.
The reflog does not contain all commits.
# Here's one way. It's supposed to be *BLAZINGLY FAST*
git rev-list --objects --all |
git cat-file --batch-check='%(objecttype) %(objectname) %(objectsize) %(rest)' |
sed -n 's/^blob //p' |
sort --numeric-sort --key=2 |
cut -c 1-12,41- |
$(command -v gnumfmt || echo numfmt) --field=2 --to=iec-i --suffix=B --padding=7 --round=nearest
# Here's another. It's simpler to read.
git rev-list --objects --all \
| grep "$(git verify-pack -v .git/objects/pack/*.idx \
| sort -k 3 -n \
| tail -10 \
| awk '{print$1}')"