On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:27:44PM +0530, Karthik Nayak wrote: > Sorry, but I didn't get you, broken objects created using hash-object --literally do not work with cat-file without the --literally option. Perhaps an example would help: I cannot create a bad tree without --literally: $ echo total garbage | ./git hash-object -t tree --stdin -w fatal: corrupt tree file $ echo total garbage | ./git hash-object -t tree --stdin -w --literally fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 but I can use cat-file without --literally to query the contents and information about the object as it stands. $ ./git cat-file tree fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 total garbage $ ./git cat-file -t fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 tree $ ./git cat-file -s fa2905d47028d00baec739f6d73540bb2a75c6f7 14 As far as I could tell - and please correct me if I've misunderstood, cat-file's literally is about dealing with unrecognized types whereas hash-object's --literally is about both creating objects with bad types and invalid objects of "recognized" types. This latter scenario is where the option name "literally" makes the most sense. Charles. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html