How to find a Github file 's SHA blob

git github sha github-api
Kiddo picture Kiddo · Nov 26, 2013 · Viewed 11.2k times · Source

I'm using this API to update a file on my repo, it requires me to have a valid SHA blob for a file that I want to update:

http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/

How do I find the SHA blob for the specific file? Supposed in my testrepo in the test account here, what is the SHA blob for the test.txt file?

https://github.com/testacc01/testrepo01

Thank you so much!

Answer

user3033893 picture user3033893 · Nov 26, 2013

The docs for updating a file specify that you will need to provide the SHA for the file you will be replacing. The easiest way would be to query github for that, too. For example:

> curl https://api.github.com/repos/testacc01/testrepo01/contents/test.txt
{
  "name": "test.txt",
  "path": "test.txt",
  "sha": "4f8a0fd8ab3537b85a64dcffa1487f4196164d78",
  "size": 13,
 …

So, you can see what the SHA is in the "sha" field of the JSON response. Use that when you formulate your request to update the file with a new version. After you have successfully updated the file, the file will have a new SHA that you will need to request before it can be updated again. (Unless, I guess, your next update goes on a different branch.)

Related questions

How much of a git sha is *generally* considered necessary to uniquely identify a change in a given codebase?

If you're going to build, say, a directory structure where a directory is named for a commit in a Git repository, and you want it to be short enough to make your eyes not bleed, but long enough that the …

Read More
How does Git(Hub) handle possible collisions from short SHAs?

Both Git and GitHub display short versions of SHAs -- just the first 7 characters instead of all 40 -- and both Git and GitHub support taking these short SHAs as arguments. E.g. git show 962a9e8 E.g. https://github.…

Read More
How can I determine the URL that a local Git repository was originally cloned from?

I pulled a project from GitHub a few days ago. I've since discovered that there are several forks on GitHub, and I neglected to note which one I took originally. How can I determine which of those forks I pulled?

Read More