GIT-LS-TREE(1)

🎀 GIT-LS-TREE(1) 🎀

okay so this is from the Git Manual bestie, and it's literally the page for git-ls-tree — no cap, it's a whole vibe 💅

✨ 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 💖

So basically it lists the contents of a given tree object, like what /bin/ls -a does in the current working directory. iconic behaviour. but bestie, note these two things:

• the behaviour is slightly different from /bin/ls in that the <path> denotes just a list of patterns to match — like, specifying a directory name (without -r) will behave differently, and the order of the arguments does not matter. fr fr, order is irrelevant 🫶
• the behaviour is similar to /bin/ls in that the <path> is taken as relative to the current working directory. e.g. when you're 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 the --full-tree option. slay.

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• <tree-ish> — Id of a tree-ish. that's the whole thing, it's just the id ✨
• -d — Show only the named tree entry itself, not its children. no kids allowed 🙈
• -r — Recurse into sub-trees. go deeper, main character energy 🔥
• -t — Show tree entries even when going to recurse them. Has no effect if -r was not passed. and -d implies -t. iykyk
• -l, --long — Show object size of blob (file) entries. the long version, we love her 👑
• -z — \0 line termination on output and do not quote filenames. See OUTPUT FORMAT below for more information. NUL vibes 💀
• --name-only, --name-status — List only filenames (instead of the "long" output), one per line. Cannot be combined with --object-only. pick a lane bestie
• --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. she's got a fast path, periodt ⭐
• --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>. cute little shortened names 🎀
• --full-name — Instead of showing the path names relative to the current working directory, show the full path names. the whole thing, no shortcuts
• --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 %xNN where NN are hex digits interpolates to character with hex code NN; for example %x00 interpolates to \0 (NUL), %x09 to \t (TAB) and %x0a to \n (LF). When specified, --format cannot be combined with other format-altering options, including --long, --name-only and --object-only. choose one aesthetic 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. defaults to the root, love that for us

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🦋 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. ngl, the full pipeline is a lot 😭

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. iconic compatibility 💖

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. so trees and commits get the lil dash, not me being dramatic 🌸

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>

obsessed with how clean that is ✨

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👑 FIELD NAMES 👑

Various values from structured fields can be used to interpolate into the resulting output. For each outputting 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.

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💜 GIT 💜

Part of the git(1) suite. one big happy family 🌈

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and that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🍓

signing off with love from Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27 — catch you in the next manpage, mwah 💋