C Git Compatibility¶

This document lists Git functionality and indicates what Dulwich supports. Dulwich is a pure Python implementation of Git that provides wire-format and repository format compatibility with C Git.

Legend:

✓ - Fully supported
◐ - Partially supported
✗ - Not supported

Main Porcelain Commands¶

Repository Management¶

✓ git init - Initialize repository
✓ git clone - Clone repository
✓ git config - Read and write configuration

Working with Files¶

✓ git add - Add file contents to the index
✓ git rm - Remove files from working tree and index
✓ git mv - Move or rename file, directory, or symlink
✓ git restore - Restore working tree files
✓ git reset - Reset current HEAD to specified state
✓ git clean - Remove untracked files

Commits¶

✓ git commit - Record changes to the repository
✓ git show - Show various types of objects
✓ git log - Show commit logs
✓ git shortlog - Summarize git log output
✓ git describe - Describe a commit using the most recent tag
✓ git annotate - Annotate file lines with commit information
✓ git blame - Show what revision and author last modified each line
✗ git citool - Graphical alternative to git-commit
✗ gitk - Git repository browser

Branches¶

✓ git branch - List, create, or delete branches
✓ git checkout - Switch branches or restore working tree files
✓ git switch - Switch branches
✓ git show-branch - Show branches and their commits
✓ git worktree - Manage multiple working trees

Tags¶

✓ git tag - Create, list, delete, or verify tags
✓ git verify-tag - Check GPG/SSH signature of tags
✓ git verify-commit - Check GPG/SSH signature of commits

Merging¶

✓ git merge - Join two or more development histories
✓ git merge-base - Find common ancestor for merge
✗ git mergetool - Run merge conflict resolution tool interactively
✓ git rebase - Reapply commits on top of another base tip
◐ git rebase -i - Interactive rebase (limited support)
✓ git cherry-pick - Apply changes introduced by existing commits
✓ git revert - Revert existing commits
✓ git cherry - Find commits not merged upstream

Remotes¶

✓ git fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository
✓ git pull - Fetch from and integrate with another repository
✓ git push - Update remote refs along with associated objects
✓ git remote - Manage set of tracked repositories
✓ git ls-remote - List references in a remote repository

Inspection¶

✓ git status - Show the working tree status
✓ git diff - Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
✓ git grep - Print lines matching a pattern
✓ git bisect - Use binary search to find commit that introduced a bug

Patching¶

✓ git format-patch - Prepare patches for email submission
✗ git am - Apply series of patches from mailbox
✗ git apply - Apply patch to files
✓ git mailsplit - Simple UNIX mbox splitter program
✓ git mailinfo - Extracts patch and authorship from a single email
✗ git send-email - Send collection of patches as emails
✗ git request-pull - Generate summary of pending changes

Debugging¶

✓ git fsck - Verify connectivity and validity of objects
✓ git check-ignore - Debug gitignore / exclude files
✓ git check-mailmap - Show canonical names and email addresses
✗ git instaweb - Instantly browse your working repository

Administration¶

✓ git gc - Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize repository
✓ git reflog - Manage reflog information
✓ git filter-branch - Rewrite branches
✓ git maintenance - Run tasks to optimize Git repository data
✓ git prune - Prune all unreachable objects
✓ git repack - Pack unpacked objects in a repository
✓ git count-objects - Count unpacked number of objects

Server Side¶

✓ git daemon - A really simple server for Git repositories
✓ git update-server-info - Update auxiliary info file
✓ git upload-pack - Send objects packed back to git-fetch-pack
✓ git receive-pack - Receive what is pushed into the repository

Other¶

✓ git archive - Create archive of files from named tree
✓ git bundle - Create, unpack, and manipulate bundle files
✓ git stash - Stash changes in dirty working directory
✓ git submodule - Initialize, update or inspect submodules
✓ git notes - Add or inspect object notes
✓ git replace - Create, list, delete refs to replace objects
✓ git rerere - Reuse recorded resolution of conflicted merges
✓ git help - Display help information
◐ git fast-export - Export repository data (API only, see fastexport module)
◐ git fast-import - Import repository data (API only, see fastexport module)
✗ git gui - Portable graphical interface to Git
✗ git web--browse - Launch web browser to view HTML documentation
✗ git difftool - Show changes using external diff tool
✗ git range-diff - Compare two commit ranges
✗ git bugreport - Collect information for bug reports
✓ git diagnose - Display diagnostic information about the environment
✗ git fsmonitor--daemon - Filesystem monitor daemon
✗ git scalar - Manage large Git repositories

Plumbing Commands¶

Manipulation¶

✗ git apply - Apply patch to files
◐ git checkout-index - Copy files from index to working tree (API only)
✓ git commit-tree - Create new commit object
◐ git hash-object - Compute object ID (API only)
◐ git index-pack - Build pack index file (API only)
◐ git merge-file - Run three-way file merge (API only)
✓ git merge-tree - Show three-way merge without touching index
◐ git mktag - Create tag object (API only)
✓ git pack-objects - Create packed archive of objects
◐ git prune-packed - Remove extra objects (API only)
◐ git read-tree - Read tree information into index (API only)
✓ git symbolic-ref - Read, modify and delete symbolic refs
✓ git unpack-objects - Unpack objects from packed archive
◐ git update-index - Register file contents in working tree to index (API only)
◐ git update-ref - Update object name stored in a ref (API only)
✓ git write-tree - Create tree object from current index
✗ git mktree - Build tree object from ls-tree formatted text

Interrogation¶

◐ git cat-file - Provide content or type and size information (API only)
◐ git diff-files - Compare files in working tree and index (API only)
◐ git diff-index - Compare content and mode of blobs (API only)
✓ git diff-tree - Compare content and mode of trees
✓ git for-each-ref - Output information on each ref
✓ git ls-files - Show information about files in index and working tree
✓ git ls-remote - List references in remote repository
✓ git ls-tree - List contents of tree object
✓ git merge-base - Find common ancestor
◐ git name-rev - Find symbolic names for revisions (API only)
✓ git pack-refs - Pack heads and tags for efficient repository access
✓ git rev-list - List commit objects in reverse chronological order
◐ git rev-parse - Pick out and massage parameters (API only, see objectspec module)
◐ git show-index - Show packed archive index (API only)
✓ git show-ref - List references in local repository
✓ git var - Show Git logical variable
◐ git verify-pack - Validate packed Git archive files (API only)

Syncing¶

◐ git fetch-pack - Receive missing objects from another repository (CLI available)
◐ git http-fetch - Download from remote Git repository via HTTP (API only)
◐ git send-pack - Push objects over Git protocol to another repository (API only)
✓ git update-server-info - Update auxiliary info for dumb servers
✗ git http-push - Push objects over HTTP to another repository
✗ git upload-archive - Send archive back to git-archive

Pack Management¶

◐ git multi-pack-index - Manage multi-pack-index (API only, see midx module)

Internal Helpers¶

◐ git check-attr - Display gitattributes information (API only, see attrs module)
✓ git check-ignore - Debug gitignore / exclude files
✓ git check-mailmap - Show canonical names and email addresses
✓ git column - Display data in columns
◐ git credential - Retrieve and store user credentials (basic support)
✗ git fmt-merge-msg - Produce merge commit message
✓ git interpret-trailers - Add or parse structured information in commit messages
✓ git mailinfo - Extract patch and authorship from single email message
✓ git mailsplit - Simple UNIX mbox splitter
✗ git merge-one-file - Standard helper program to use with git-merge-index
◐ git patch-id - Compute unique ID for patch (API only, see patch module)
✓ git stripspace - Remove unnecessary whitespace
✗ git sh-setup - Common Git shell script setup code
✗ git sh-i18n - Git’s i18n setup code for shell scripts

File Formats & Protocols¶

Repository Format¶

✓ Object storage (loose objects)
✓ Pack files (.pack)
✓ Pack indexes (.idx)
✓ Multi-pack index (.midx)
✓ Pack bitmaps
✓ Commit graphs
✓ SHA-1 object format
✓ SHA-256 object format
✓ Reftable format

Configuration Files¶

✓ .git/config
✓ .gitignore
✓ .gitattributes
✓ .mailmap
✓ .git/info/exclude
✓ .git/info/attributes
✓ .gitmodules

Ref Storage¶

✓ Loose refs (refs/heads/, refs/tags/, etc.)
✓ Packed refs (packed-refs)
✓ Reflog
✓ Reftable

Network Protocols¶

✓ SSH protocol
✓ Git protocol (git://)
✓ HTTP/HTTPS (smart protocol)
✓ HTTP/HTTPS (dumb protocol)
✓ File protocol (file://)
✓ Local repositories
◐ Protocol v2 (client fetch only, server limited)

Transfer Capabilities¶

Fetch/Upload-Pack:

✓ thin-pack - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ ofs-delta - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ multi_ack - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ multi_ack_detailed - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ side-band-64k - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ shallow - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ deepen-since - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ deepen-not - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ deepen-relative - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ include-tag - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
◐ no-progress - Server: ✓, Client: ✗
✓ symref - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
◐ filter - Server: ✓, Client: ◐ (basic support)

Push/Receive-Pack:

✓ report-status - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ delete-refs - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ quiet - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ atomic - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ ofs-delta - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ side-band-64k - Server: ✓, Client: ✓

General:

✓ object-format - Server: ✓, Client: ✓
✓ agent - Server: ✓, Client: ✓

Advanced Features¶

Signatures¶

✓ GPG commit signing
✓ GPG tag signing
✓ GPG signature verification (verify-commit, verify-tag)
✓ SSH commit signing
✓ SSH tag signing
✓ SSH signature verification

Filters & Attributes¶

✓ Clean/smudge filters
✓ Text/binary detection
✓ End-of-line conversion (CRLF/LF)
✓ .gitattributes processing
✗ Working tree encoding
✓ Whitespace handling

Hooks¶

✓ Hook execution
✓ pre-commit
✗ prepare-commit-msg
✓ commit-msg
✓ post-commit
✗ pre-rebase
✗ post-checkout
✗ post-merge
✗ pre-push
✗ pre-receive
✗ update
✓ post-receive
✗ post-update
✗ push-to-checkout

Git LFS¶

✓ git-lfs init
✓ git-lfs track
✓ git-lfs untrack
✓ git-lfs ls-files
✓ git-lfs fetch
✓ git-lfs pull
✓ git-lfs push
✗ git-lfs checkout
✓ git-lfs clean (filter)
✓ git-lfs smudge (filter)
◐ git-lfs pointer (API only via lfs_pointer_check)
✓ git-lfs migrate
✓ git-lfs status
✓ LFS server implementation
✓ LFS batch API

Sparse Checkout¶

✓ Sparse checkout patterns
✓ Cone mode
✓ git sparse-checkout init (cone mode)
✓ git sparse-checkout set
✓ git sparse-checkout add
◐ git sparse-checkout list (via API only)
◐ git sparse-checkout disable (via API only)
✗ git sparse-checkout reapply

Worktrees¶

✓ git worktree add
✓ git worktree list
✓ git worktree remove
✓ git worktree prune
✓ git worktree lock
✓ git worktree unlock
✓ git worktree move
✓ git worktree repair

Submodules¶

✓ git submodule add
✓ git submodule init
✓ git submodule update
◐ git submodule status (basic)
✗ git submodule summary
✗ git submodule foreach
✗ git submodule sync
✗ git submodule deinit
✗ git submodule absorbgitdirs

Notes¶

✓ git notes add
✓ git notes list
✓ git notes show
✓ git notes remove
✗ git notes append
✗ git notes copy
✗ git notes merge
✗ git notes prune
✗ git notes get-ref

Other Advanced Features¶

✓ Rerere (reuse recorded resolution)
✓ Commit graph
✓ Replace objects
✓ Grafts
✓ Info/alternates (alternate object databases)
✓ Partial clone/fetch
✓ Shallow clone/fetch
✓ Bundle files
✓ Fast-import/fast-export
✗ Scalar
◐ Partial clone with object filters (basic blob:none support)

Web Interface¶

✓ Gitweb-like interface (dulwich.web)
✓ WSGI application support
✗ cgit
✗ GitWeb (Perl implementation)

Known Limitations¶

The following Git features are not currently supported:

Git GUIs (gitk, git-gui, git-citool)
Email workflow tools (git-send-email, git-request-pull)
Patch application (git-am, git-apply)
Interactive tools (git-difftool, git-mergetool)
Newer features (range-diff, scalar, fsmonitor–daemon)
Full protocol v2 server support (client is fully supported for fetch)
Some plumbing commands (mktree, http-push, upload-archive, fmt-merge-msg, merge-one-file)
Full submodule feature parity
Some advanced object filtering options
Most git hooks (only pre-commit, commit-msg, post-commit, post-receive)
Working tree encoding attribute

Compatibility Notes¶

Repository Compatibility¶

Dulwich maintains full wire-format and on-disk repository format compatibility with C Git. This means:

Dulwich can read and write repositories created by C Git
C Git can read and write repositories created by Dulwich
Dulwich and C Git can be used interchangeably on the same repository
Network protocols are fully compatible