git-ls-tree - Man Page

List the contents of a tree object

Examples (TL;DR)

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:

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\0 line termination on output and do not quote filenames​.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 %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​.

[<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 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​.

Git

Part of the git(1) suite

Info

09/28/2026 Git 2.56.0 Git Manual