# git-ls-tree(1) Manual Page

## NAME

git-ls-tree - List the contents of a tree object

## SYNOPSIS

    git ls-tree [-d] [-r] [-t] [-l] [-z]
                [--name-only] [--name-status] [--object-only] [--full-name] [--full-tree] [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--format=<format>]
                <tree-ish> [<path>…​]

## DESCRIPTION

Lists the contents of a given tree object, like what "/bin/ls -a" does in the current working directory. Note that:

- the behaviour is slightly different from that of "/bin/ls" in that the <path> denotes just a list of patterns to match, e.g. so specifying directory name (without `-r`) will behave differently, and order of the arguments does not matter.

- the behaviour is similar to that of "/bin/ls" in that the <path> is taken as relative to the current working directory. E.g. when you are in a directory sub that has a directory dir, you can run git ls-tree -r HEAD dir to list the contents of the tree (that is `sub/dir` in `HEAD`). You don’t want to give a tree that is not at the root level (e.g. `git ls-tree -r HEAD:sub dir`) in this case, as that would result in asking for `sub/sub/dir` in the `HEAD` commit. However, the current working directory can be ignored by passing --full-tree option.

## OPTIONS

<tree-ish>

  Id of a tree-ish.

-d

  Show only the named tree entry itself, not its children.

-r

  Recurse into sub-trees.

-t

  Show tree entries even when going to recurse them. Has no effect if `-r` was not passed. `-d` implies `-t`.

-l
--long

  Show object size of blob (file) entries.

-z

  \0 line termination on output and do not quote filenames. See OUTPUT FORMAT below for more information.

--name-only
--name-status

  List only filenames (instead of the "long" output), one per line. Cannot be combined with `--object-only`.

--object-only

  List only names of the objects, one per line. Cannot be combined with `--name-only` or `--name-status`. This is equivalent to specifying `--format='%(objectname)'`, but for both this option and that exact format the command takes a hand-optimized codepath instead of going through the generic formatting mechanism.

--abbrev[=<n>]

  Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object lines, show the shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely refers the object. Non default number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.

--full-name

  Instead of showing the path names relative to the current working directory, show the full path names.

--full-tree

  Do not limit the listing to the current working directory. Implies --full-name.

--format=<format>

  A string that interpolates `%(fieldname)` from the result being shown. It also interpolates `%%` to `%`, and `%xx` where `xx` are hex digits interpolates to character with hex code `xx`; for example `%00` interpolates to `\0` (NUL), `%09` to `\t` (TAB) and `%0a` to `\n` (LF). When specified, `--format` cannot be combined with other format-altering options, including `--long`, `--name-only` and `--object-only`.

[<path>…​]

  When paths are given, show them (note that this isn’t really raw pathnames, but rather a list of patterns to match). Otherwise implicitly uses the root level of the tree as the sole path argument.

## Output Format

The output format of `ls-tree` is determined by either the `--format` option, or other format-altering options such as `--name-only` etc. (see `--format` above).

The use of certain `--format` directives is equivalent to using those options, but invoking the full formatting machinery can be slower than using an appropriate formatting option.

In cases where the `--format` would exactly map to an existing option `ls-tree` will use the appropriate faster path. Thus the default format is equivalent to:

    %(objectmode) %(objecttype) %(objectname)%x09%(path)

This output format is compatible with what `--index-info --stdin` of git update-index expects.

When the `-l` option is used, format changes to

    %(objectmode) %(objecttype) %(objectname) %(objectsize:padded)%x09%(path)

Object size identified by <objectname> is given in bytes, and right-justified with minimum width of 7 characters. Object size is given only for blobs (file) entries; for other entries `-` character is used in place of size.

Without the `-z` option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the configuration variable `core.quotePath` (see git-config(1)). Using `-z` the filename is output verbatim and the line is terminated by a NUL byte.

Customized format:

It is possible to print in a custom format by using the `--format` option, which is able to interpolate different fields using a `%(fieldname)` notation. For example, if you only care about the "objectname" and "path" fields, you can execute with a specific "--format" like

    git ls-tree --format='%(objectname) %(path)' <tree-ish>

## FIELD NAMES

Various values from structured fields can be used to interpolate into the resulting output. For each outputing line, the following names can be used:

objectmode

  The mode of the object.

objecttype

  The type of the object (`commit`, `blob` or `tree`).

objectname

  The name of the object.

objectsize[:padded]

  The size of a `blob` object ("-" if it’s a `commit` or `tree`). It also supports a padded format of size with "%(objectsize:padded)".

path

  The pathname of the object.

## GIT

Part of the git(1) suite