man > GIT-ARCHIVE

GIT-ARCHIVE(1)                               Git Manual                               GIT-ARCHIVE(1)

NAME
       git-archive - Create an archive of files from a named tree

SYNOPSIS
       git archive [--format=<fmt>] [--list] [--prefix=<prefix>/] [<extra>]
                     [-o <file> | --output=<file>] [--worktree-attributes]
                     [--remote=<repo> [--exec=<git-upload-archive>]] <tree-ish>
                     [<path>...]


DESCRIPTION
       Creates an archive of the specified format containing the tree structure for the named tree,
       and writes it out to the standard output. If <prefix> is specified it is prepended to the
       filenames in the archive.

       git archive behaves differently when given a tree ID as opposed to a commit ID or tag ID.
       When a tree ID is provided, the current time is used as the modification time of each file in
       the archive. On the other hand, when a commit ID or tag ID is provided, the commit time as
       recorded in the referenced commit object is used instead. Additionally the commit ID is
       stored in a global extended pax header if the tar format is used; it can be extracted using
       git get-tar-commit-id. In ZIP files it is stored as a file comment.

OPTIONS
       --format=<fmt>
           Format of the resulting archive. Possible values are tar, zip, tar.gz, tgz, and any
           format defined using the configuration option tar.<format>.command. If --format is not
           given, and the output file is specified, the format is inferred from the filename if
           possible (e.g. writing to foo.zip makes the output to be in the zip format). Otherwise
           the output format is tar.

       -l, --list
           Show all available formats.

       -v, --verbose
           Report progress to stderr.

       --prefix=<prefix>/
           Prepend <prefix>/ to paths in the archive. Can be repeated; its rightmost value is used
           for all tracked files. See below which value gets used by --add-file and
           --add-virtual-file.

       -o <file>, --output=<file>
           Write the archive to <file> instead of stdout.

       --add-file=<file>
           Add a non-tracked file to the archive. Can be repeated to add multiple files. The path of
           the file in the archive is built by concatenating the value of the last --prefix option
           (if any) before this --add-file and the basename of <file>.

       --add-virtual-file=<path>:<content>
           Add the specified contents to the archive. Can be repeated to add multiple files. The
           path of the file in the archive is built by concatenating the value of the last --prefix
           option (if any) before this --add-virtual-file and <path>.

           The <path> argument can start and end with a literal double-quote character; the
           contained file name is interpreted as a C-style string, i.e. the backslash is interpreted
           as escape character. The path must be quoted if it contains a colon, to avoid the colon
           from being misinterpreted as the separator between the path and the contents, or if the
           path begins or ends with a double-quote character.

           The file mode is limited to a regular file, and the option may be subject to
           platform-dependent command-line limits. For non-trivial cases, write an untracked file
           and use --add-file instead.

       --worktree-attributes
           Look for attributes in .gitattributes files in the working tree as well (see the section
           called “ATTRIBUTES”).

       --mtime=<time>
           Set modification time of archive entries. Without this option the committer time is used
           if <tree-ish> is a commit or tag, and the current time if it is a tree.

       <extra>
           This can be any options that the archiver backend understands. See next section.

       --remote=<repo>
           Instead of making a tar archive from the local repository, retrieve a tar archive from a
           remote repository. Note that the remote repository may place restrictions on which sha1
           expressions may be allowed in <tree-ish>. See git-upload-archive(1) for details.

       --exec=<git-upload-archive>
           Used with --remote to specify the path to the git-upload-archive on the remote side.

       <tree-ish>
           The tree or commit to produce an archive for.

       <path>
           Without an optional path parameter, all files and subdirectories of the current working
           directory are included in the archive. If one or more paths are specified, only these are
           included.

BACKEND EXTRA OPTIONS
   zip
       -<digit>
           Specify compression level. Larger values allow the command to spend more time to compress
           to smaller size. Supported values are from -0 (store-only) to -9 (best ratio). Default is
           -6 if not given.

   tar
       -<number>
           Specify compression level. The value will be passed to the compression command configured
           in tar.<format>.command. See manual page of the configured command for the list of
           supported levels and the default level if this option isn’t specified.

CONFIGURATION
       tar.umask
           This variable can be used to restrict the permission bits of tar archive entries. The
           default is 0002, which turns off the world write bit. The special value "user" indicates
           that the archiving user’s umask will be used instead. See umask(2) for details. If
           --remote is used then only the configuration of the remote repository takes effect.

       tar.<format>.command
           This variable specifies a shell command through which the tar output generated by git
           archive should be piped. The command is executed using the shell with the generated tar
           file on its standard input, and should produce the final output on its standard output.
           Any compression-level options will be passed to the command (e.g., -9).

           The tar.gz and tgz formats are defined automatically and use the magic command git
           archive gzip by default, which invokes an internal implementation of gzip.

       tar.<format>.remote
           If true, enable the format for use by remote clients via git-upload-archive(1). Defaults
           to false for user-defined formats, but true for the tar.gz and tgz formats.

ATTRIBUTES
       export-ignore
           Files and directories with the attribute export-ignore won’t be added to archive files.
           See gitattributes(5) for details.

       export-subst
           If the attribute export-subst is set for a file then Git will expand several placeholders
           when adding this file to an archive. See gitattributes(5) for details.

       Note that attributes are by default taken from the .gitattributes files in the tree that is
       being archived. If you want to tweak the way the output is generated after the fact (e.g. you
       committed without adding an appropriate export-ignore in its .gitattributes), adjust the
       checked out .gitattributes file as necessary and use --worktree-attributes option.
       Alternatively you can keep necessary attributes that should apply while archiving any tree in
       your $GIT_DIR/info/attributes file.

EXAMPLES
       git archive --format=tar --prefix=junk/ HEAD | (cd /var/tmp/ && tar xf -)
           Create a tar archive that contains the contents of the latest commit on the current
           branch, and extract it in the /var/tmp/junk directory.

       git archive --format=tar --prefix=git-1.4.0/ v1.4.0 | gzip >git-1.4.0.tar.gz
           Create a compressed tarball for v1.4.0 release.

       git archive --format=tar.gz --prefix=git-1.4.0/ v1.4.0 >git-1.4.0.tar.gz
           Same as above, but using the builtin tar.gz handling.

       git archive --prefix=git-1.4.0/ -o git-1.4.0.tar.gz v1.4.0
           Same as above, but the format is inferred from the output file.

       git archive --format=tar --prefix=git-1.4.0/ v1.4.0^{tree} | gzip >git-1.4.0.tar.gz
           Create a compressed tarball for v1.4.0 release, but without a global extended pax header.

       git archive --format=zip --prefix=git-docs/ HEAD:Documentation/ > git-1.4.0-docs.zip
           Put everything in the current head’s Documentation/ directory into git-1.4.0-docs.zip,
           with the prefix git-docs/.

       git archive -o latest.zip HEAD
           Create a Zip archive that contains the contents of the latest commit on the current
           branch. Note that the output format is inferred by the extension of the output file.

       git archive -o latest.tar --prefix=build/ --add-file=configure --prefix= HEAD
           Creates a tar archive that contains the contents of the latest commit on the current
           branch with no prefix and the untracked file configure with the prefix build/.

       git config tar.tar.xz.command "xz -c"
           Configure a "tar.xz" format for making LZMA-compressed tarfiles. You can use it
           specifying --format=tar.xz, or by creating an output file like -o foo.tar.xz.

SEE ALSO
       gitattributes(5)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.43.0                                   07/02/2025                               GIT-ARCHIVE(1)