git/Documentation/git-hash-object.txt
Junio C Hamano 33e8fc8740 usage: do not insist that standard input must come from a file
The synopsys text and the usage string of subcommands that read list
of things from the standard input are often shown like this:

	git gostak [--distim] < <list-of-doshes>

This is problematic in a number of ways:

 * The way to use these commands is more often to feed them the
   output from another command, not feed them from a file.

 * Manual pages outside Git, commands that operate on the data read
   from the standard input, e.g "sort", "grep", "sed", etc., are not
   described with such a "< redirection-from-file" in their synopsys
   text.  Our doing so introduces inconsistency.

 * We do not insist on where the output should go, by saying

	git gostak [--distim] < <list-of-doshes> > <output>

 * As it is our convention to enclose placeholders inside <braket>,
   the redirection operator followed by a placeholder filename
   becomes very hard to read, both in the documentation and in the
   help text.

Let's clean them all up, after making sure that the documentation
clearly describes the modes that take information from the standard
input and what kind of things are expected on the input.

[jc: stole example for fmt-merge-msg from Jonathan]

Helped-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2015-10-16 15:27:52 -07:00

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git-hash-object(1)
==================
NAME
----
git-hash-object - Compute object ID and optionally creates a blob from a file
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git hash-object' [-t <type>] [-w] [--path=<file>|--no-filters] [--stdin [--literally]] [--] <file>...
'git hash-object' [-t <type>] [-w] --stdin-paths [--no-filters]
DESCRIPTION
-----------
Computes the object ID value for an object with specified type
with the contents of the named file (which can be outside of the
work tree), and optionally writes the resulting object into the
object database. Reports its object ID to its standard output.
This is used by 'git cvsimport' to update the index
without modifying files in the work tree. When <type> is not
specified, it defaults to "blob".
OPTIONS
-------
-t <type>::
Specify the type (default: "blob").
-w::
Actually write the object into the object database.
--stdin::
Read the object from standard input instead of from a file.
--stdin-paths::
Read file names from the standard input, one per line, instead
of from the command-line.
--path::
Hash object as it were located at the given path. The location of
file does not directly influence on the hash value, but path is
used to determine what Git filters should be applied to the object
before it can be placed to the object database, and, as result of
applying filters, the actual blob put into the object database may
differ from the given file. This option is mainly useful for hashing
temporary files located outside of the working directory or files
read from stdin.
--no-filters::
Hash the contents as is, ignoring any input filter that would
have been chosen by the attributes mechanism, including the end-of-line
conversion. If the file is read from standard input then this
is always implied, unless the `--path` option is given.
--literally::
Allow `--stdin` to hash any garbage into a loose object which might not
otherwise pass standard object parsing or git-fsck checks. Useful for
stress-testing Git itself or reproducing characteristics of corrupt or
bogus objects encountered in the wild.
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite