find lost `git write-tree`

Question

I have a script that uses git write-tree to make up for the deficiencies in git stash, it works perfect unless I ctrlC the script.

[... other parts of script ...]
exec('git add -f .');
workingTreeHash=exec('git write-tree');
exec('git checkout -f [...]');

At this point the I ^C the script and thus lost the write-tree hash variable workingTreeHash.

My attempt at recovery:

$ git fsck --lost-found --full --unreachable
$ git config gc.auto 0
$ (
          for i in $(ls .git/lost-found/{commit,other}/*);do
                  git show $(basename $i);
          done;
  )
  |grep -iae 'unique modifications';

showed nothing... so where did the lost git add -f .;git write-tree object go? Where can it be found. (I am aware of git workspaces, I will try that as an alternative for the script).

This isn't a high priority, just for future reference in case this happens again with something important.

The tree might not be unique (it might be contained in some existing commit for instance), in which case it won't be lost and therefore will not show up in lost-found. — torek, Jan 31 '20 at 20:25

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 31 '20 at 21:36

find .git/objects/?? -type f -exec ls -t {} + | head

(it's probably the first one), then git show them.

For me, I've made a change since my last commit, so I get

$ find .git/objects/?? -type f -exec ls -t {} + | head
.git/objects/e6/9de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391
.git/objects/e1/c72a7c34b57c7570dd13c269d3065ef27fb896
.git/objects/1a/e2d4203a023095ce1cfc63e9b201f402234b60
.git/objects/fc/13259859a21139736e58d3a80f15c495ee90fe
.git/objects/01/ca0f1889baacba762a2841c9bce3c3f3927a90
.git/objects/6a/c151c9adf00d90e55afd8da4a0534deeb27d00
.git/objects/91/82087c12c32c2dc475798913b949a5a063d1e0
.git/objects/ca/291ca41a16b5dcda64c063f2844337bbb16b1f
.git/objects/35/6b4df63d859611895c730633790dd1bcdb7eb4
.git/objects/b1/615cd532dea5e28cf57be5521cb216dcf90115
find: ‘ls’ terminated by signal 13
$ git show 1ae2d
tree 1ae2d
[…etc]

and the full hash would be git rev-parse 1ae2d if you don't want to type it. c72a7's the commit, e69d, you might even recognize that hash, it's an empty file I added by mistake.

Also, if you know you haven't touched the index since writing it, git write-tree is idempotent, just do it again, you'll get the same tree.

find lost `git write-tree`

1 Answers1