git-lost-found (1) - Linux Manuals

git-lost-found: Recover lost refs that luckily have not yet been pruned

Command to display git-lost-found manual in Linux: $ man 1 git-lost-found

NAME

git-lost-found - Recover lost refs that luckily have not yet been pruned

SYNOPSIS

git lost-found

DESCRIPTION

NOTE: this command is deprecated. Use git-fsck(1) with the option --lost-found instead.

Finds dangling commits and tags from the object database, and creates refs to them in the .git/lost-found/ directory. Commits and tags that dereference to commits are stored in .git/lost-found/commit, and other objects are stored in .git/lost-found/other.

OUTPUT

Prints to standard output the object names and one-line descriptions of any commits or tags found.

EXAMPLE

Suppose you run git tag -f and mistype the tag to overwrite. The ref to your tag is overwritten, but until you run git prune, the tag itself is still there.

$ git lost-found
[1ef2b196d909eed523d4f3c9bf54b78cdd6843c6] GIT 0.99.9c
...

Also you can use gitk to browse how any tags found relate to each other.

$ gitk $(cd .git/lost-found/commit && echo ??*)

After making sure you know which the object is the tag you are looking for, you can reconnect it to your regular refs hierarchy by using the update-ref command.

$ git cat-file -t 1ef2b196
tag
$ git cat-file tag 1ef2b196
object fa41bbce8e38c67a218415de6cfa510c7e50032a
type commit
tag v0.99.9c
tagger Junio C Hamano <junkio [at] cox.net> 1131059594 -0800

GIT 0.99.9c

This contains the following changes from the "master" branch, since
...
$ git update-ref refs/tags/not-lost-anymore 1ef2b196
$ git rev-parse not-lost-anymore
1ef2b196d909eed523d4f3c9bf54b78cdd6843c6

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite