How to read the mode field of git-ls-tree's output
From the Git index-format.txt
file, regarding the mode:
32-bit mode, split into (high to low bits)
4-bit object type
valid values in binary are 1000 (regular file), 1010 (symbolic link)
and 1110 (gitlink)
3-bit unused
9-bit unix permission. Only 0755 and 0644 are valid for regular files.
Symbolic links and gitlinks have value 0 in this field.
Also, a directory object type (binary 0100) and group-writeable (0664 permissions) regular file are allowed as indicated by the fsck.c
fsck_tree
method. The regular non-executable group-writeable file is a non-standard mode that was supported in earlier versions of Git.
This makes valid modes (as binary and octal):
0100000000000000
(040000
): Directory1000000110100100
(100644
): Regular non-executable file1000000110110100
(100664
): Regular non-executable group-writeable file1000000111101101
(100755
): Regular executable file1010000000000000
(120000
): Symbolic link1110000000000000
(160000
): Gitlink
The 6 digits show the file mode using the classical UNIX notations. First two digits show file type, the third one is about set-uid/set-gid/sticky bits, and you know the last three.
Here is how man 2 stat
documents it on my GNU/Linux system:
The following flags are defined for the st_mode field:
S_IFMT 0170000 bit mask for the file type bit fields
S_IFSOCK 0140000 socket
S_IFLNK 0120000 symbolic link
S_IFREG 0100000 regular file
S_IFBLK 0060000 block device
S_IFDIR 0040000 directory
S_IFCHR 0020000 character device
S_IFIFO 0010000 FIFO
S_ISUID 0004000 set UID bit
S_ISGID 0002000 set-group-ID bit (see below)
S_ISVTX 0001000 sticky bit (see below)
S_IRWXU 00700 mask for file owner permissions
S_IRUSR 00400 owner has read permission
S_IWUSR 00200 owner has write permission
S_IXUSR 00100 owner has execute permission
S_IRWXG 00070 mask for group permissions
S_IRGRP 00040 group has read permission
S_IWGRP 00020 group has write permission
S_IXGRP 00010 group has execute permission
S_IRWXO 00007 mask for permissions for others (not in group)
S_IROTH 00004 others have read permission
S_IWOTH 00002 others have write permission
S_IXOTH 00001 others have execute permission