In order to find out what git does when we change files, we're going to create this directory and file hierarchy:
.
├── top-level-dir
│ ├── second-level-file.md
│ └── sub-level-dir
│ └── third-level-file.md
└── top-level-file.md
To do so, we can run these commands in an empty git repository:
echo "Lorem ipsum top level file" > top-level-file.md
mkdir top-level-dir
cd top-level-dir
echo "Lorem ipsum second level file" > second-level-file.md
mkdir sub-level-dir
cd sub-level-dir
echo "Lorem ipsum third level file" > third-level-file.md
(Cover image by wynand van niekerk from FreeImages)
Result after add
After just running git add ., not commit, the contents of the .git/objects folder now look like this:
$ tree .git/objects
.
├── 1e
│ └── 86cd88d41dabd1342deb658da84a2bc9ab83cd
├── 51
│ └── 4ef3078e9106262d76be15bf23d83e8cd3bbe8
├── de
│ └── 8fcf5858a255ce7a9a60db7a004fa5b6ad80e5
├── info
└── pack
For every file, git has created a SHA-1 hash that is 40 characters long. The first two characters make up the name of the directory in the .git/objects folder and the remaining 38 characters are used for the file name. To refer to an object, we don't always have to use the full 40-character hash; the first seven or so digits are usually sufficient for git to know which object we want since there is usually no other object sharing those first digits. In our example, our object hashes are 1e86cd8…, 514ef30…, and de8fcf5….
By examining the content with git cat-file -p <object hash>, we can find out that 1e86cd8 is the third-level file, 514ef30 is the top-level file, and de8fcf5 is the second-level file.
Insights
- git already adds objects in the objects folder even if they are not committed
- apparently, it does not add
treeobjects yet, just the blobs
Git will only add tree objects after we commit our changes.
Result after commit
After running git commit, git has created a commit with the shortened hash 343d8dd.
The git objects folder now looks like this (comments after # sign):
$ tree .git/objects
.
├── 1e
│ └── 86cd88d41dabd1342deb658da84a2bc9ab83cd # third-level-file.md
├── 34
│ └── 3d8dd527a9740dc15f8be4f5a8c71308b96926 # new, commit object
├── 3a
│ └── 2e7f0d5abbe9b0d1bb26e6118f1c0070489e17 # new
├── 4d
│ └── 9f43d4557e71eb6e5f540493ae5b92dfef7a67 # new
├── 51
│ └── 4ef3078e9106262d76be15bf23d83e8cd3bbe8 # top-level-file.md
├── a6
│ └── 9f01451a19e5ba5fce7c8bd1c584b9e2e711ed # new
├── de
│ └── 8fcf5858a255ce7a9a60db7a004fa5b6ad80e5 # second-level-file.md
├── info
└── pack
Looking at information on the commit object:
$ git cat-file -p 343d8dd
tree 4d9f43d4557e71eb6e5f540493ae5b92dfef7a67
author Sonja Heins <sonja.heins@example.com> 1636191282 +0100
committer Sonja Heins <sonja.heins@example.com> 1636191282 +0100
Add nested dirs and files
We can look at all files and directories contained in the root tree 4d9f43d with the command git ls-tree using the -r flag for recursing into subtrees and the -t flag for showing trees when recursing. I used --abbrev=7 here so git will abbreviate object hashes to seven digits.
$ git ls-tree -rt 4d9f43d --abbrev=7
040000 tree a69f014 top-level-dir
100644 blob de8fcf5 top-level-dir/second-level-file.md
040000 tree 3a2e7f0 top-level-dir/sub-level-dir
100644 blob 1e86cd8 top-level-dir/sub-level-dir/third-level-file.md
100644 blob 514ef30 top-level-file.md
If we only want the files listed and not the tree objects, we can use git ls-tree -r:
$ git ls-tree -r 4d9f43 --abbrev=7
100644 blob de8fcf5 top-level-dir/second-level-file.md
100644 blob 1e86cd8 top-level-dir/sub-level-dir/third-level-file.md
100644 blob 514ef30 top-level-file.md
So, after the first commit, our hierarchy is like this:
.
├── commit 343d8dd
│ └── tree 4d9f43d
│ ├── blob 514ef30 (top-level-file.md)
│ └── tree a69f014 (top-level-dir)
│ ├── blob de8fcf5 (second-level-file.md)
│ └── tree 3a2e7f0 (sub-level-dir)
│ └── blob 1e86cd8 (third-level-file.md)
Changing a file
$ echo "Adding a line to the second-level file" >> top-level-dir/second-level-file.md
Now we have added a line to the second-level file. Before we run git add, nothing changes in our object directory:
$ tree .git/objects
.
├── 1e
│ └── 86cd88d41dabd1342deb658da84a2bc9ab83cd
├── 34
│ └── 3d8dd527a9740dc15f8be4f5a8c71308b96926
├── 3a
│ └── 2e7f0d5abbe9b0d1bb26e6118f1c0070489e17
├── 4d
│ └── 9f43d4557e71eb6e5f540493ae5b92dfef7a67
├── 51
│ └── 4ef3078e9106262d76be15bf23d83e8cd3bbe8
├── a6
│ └── 9f01451a19e5ba5fce7c8bd1c584b9e2e711ed
├── de
│ └── 8fcf5858a255ce7a9a60db7a004fa5b6ad80e5
├── info
└── pack
9 directories, 7 files
After we run git add ., we have a new directory and file, f9cc8e0:
$ tree .git/objects
.
├── 1e
│ └── 86cd88d41dabd1342deb658da84a2bc9ab83cd
├── 34
│ └── 3d8dd527a9740dc15f8be4f5a8c71308b96926
├── 3a
│ └── 2e7f0d5abbe9b0d1bb26e6118f1c0070489e17
├── 4d
│ └── 9f43d4557e71eb6e5f540493ae5b92dfef7a67
├── 51
│ └── 4ef3078e9106262d76be15bf23d83e8cd3bbe8
├── a6
│ └── 9f01451a19e5ba5fce7c8bd1c584b9e2e711ed
├── de
│ └── 8fcf5858a255ce7a9a60db7a004fa5b6ad80e5
├── f9
│ └── cc8e0b7374e973acbbc00c8742997ccd17d473 # new
├── info
└── pack
10 directories, 8 files
This object contains the new file changes:
$ git cat-file -p f9cc8e0
Lorem ipsum second level file
Adding a line to the second-level file
Now we commit and, in doing so, produce a new commit, 9d2aeae:
$ git commit -m "Add line to second-level-file.md"
[main 9d2aeae] Add line to second-level-file.md
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
Afterwards, our git object directory looks like this (comments after # sign):
.
├── 1e
│ └── 86cd88d41dabd1342deb658da84a2bc9ab83cd
├── 34
│ └── 3d8dd527a9740dc15f8be4f5a8c71308b96926
├── 3a
│ └── 2e7f0d5abbe9b0d1bb26e6118f1c0070489e17
├── 4d
│ └── 9f43d4557e71eb6e5f540493ae5b92dfef7a67
├── 51
│ └── 4ef3078e9106262d76be15bf23d83e8cd3bbe8
├── 9b
│ └── 676fbb2c624d1541263163ff84447242b5997b # new
├── 9d
│ └── 2aeae6478aa11d828bc4d969dbfc55186593bf # new (commit)
├── a0
│ └── 4ef2163c702bea83aa59d0fc5cc1547006b22f # new
├── a6
│ └── 9f01451a19e5ba5fce7c8bd1c584b9e2e711ed
├── de
│ └── 8fcf5858a255ce7a9a60db7a004fa5b6ad80e5
├── f9
│ └── cc8e0b7374e973acbbc00c8742997ccd17d473 # changed second-level-file.md
├── info
└── pack
13 directories, 11 files
In order to change our second-level-file, git needed to change the tree object for the top-level-dir folder as well as the root tree. After we committed our changes, git told us the new commit hash, 9d2aeae.
We can now use this and run git cat-file -p 9d2aeae to find out the hash for the root tree, 9b676fb.
Let's run ls-tree on this to see what it looks like.
$ git ls-tree -rt 9b676fb --abbrev=7
040000 tree a04ef21 top-level-dir
100644 blob f9cc8e0 top-level-dir/second-level-file.md
040000 tree 3a2e7f0 top-level-dir/sub-level-dir
100644 blob 1e86cd8 top-level-dir/sub-level-dir/third-level-file.md
100644 blob 514ef30 top-level-file.md
Now, our hierarchy is like this:
.
├── commit 343d8dd
│ └── tree 4d9f43d
│ ├── blob 514ef30 (top-level-file.md)
│ └── tree a69f014 (top-level-dir)
│ ├── blob de8fcf5 (second-level-file.md)
│ └── tree 3a2e7f0 (sub-level-dir)
│ └── blob 1e86cd8 (third-level-file.md)
├── commit 9d2aeae
│ └── tree 9b676fb
│ ├── blob 514ef30 (top-level-file.md)
│ └── tree a04ef21 (top-level-dir)
│ ├── blob f9cc8e0 (second-level-file.md)
│ └── tree 3a2e7f0 (sub-level-dir)
│ └── blob 1e86cd8 (third-level-file.md)
The object hashes for top-level-file (514ef30), sub-level-dir (3a2e7f0), and third-level-file (1e86cd8) have not changed, only the ones that lead us to second-level-file.md have changed, so the hash for the file itself and the ones for the trees that contain it.
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