How does git compute file hashes?

git hash sha1 checksum git-hash
netvope picture netvope · Aug 29, 2011 · Viewed 44.1k times · Source

The SHA1 hashes stored in the tree objects (as returned by git ls-tree) do not match the SHA1 hashes of the file content (as returned by sha1sum)

$ git cat-file blob 4716ca912495c805b94a88ef6dc3fb4aff46bf3c | sha1sum
de20247992af0f949ae8df4fa9a37e4a03d7063e  -

How does git compute file hashes? Does it compress the content before computing the hash?

Answer

Leif Gruenwoldt picture Leif Gruenwoldt · Aug 29, 2011

Git prefixes the object with "blob ", followed by the length (as a human-readable integer), followed by a NUL character

$ echo -e 'blob 14\0Hello, World!' | shasum 8ab686eafeb1f44702738c8b0f24f2567c36da6d

Source: http://alblue.bandlem.com/2011/08/git-tip-of-week-objects.html

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