GeoGig

Exploring a repository

The entire contents of a GeoGig repository are stored in the .geogig directory.

Unlike a version control system like Git, the content of the current working tree cannot be explored directly as a normal folder containing files, so they are stored instead in a database which holds the complete structure of the repository. This means that any files stored in the same directory that contains the .geogig directory will be ignored by GeoGig.

Therefore, exploring a GeoGig repository must be done using GeoGig commands. The main commands used for this task are:

  • ls: lists the content of a tree
  • show: prints a formatted version of an element of the repository

Listing trees

The basic ls command takes the following form:

geogig ls [ref]:[path]

The [ref]:[path] parameter defines the path to be listed. If it contains no ref part, it will list the given path in the current working tree. To list the same path in a different reference, a full reference can be provided. For instance, to list the content of parks in the current HEAD, the following line should be used.

geogig ls HEAD:parks

The provided reference and path should resolve to a tree. Since features do not contains other elements, their content cannot be listed with the ls command, but instead must be examined with the show command.

An object ID can be used directly, instead of a [ref]:[path], to list the contents of the tree corresponding to that commit.

The options available for the ls command control how the list of elements under the given path are printed.

  • The -v option will display a verbose list of, not just the name of the objects, but also the object’s ID and the ID of the corresponding feature type.
  • The -r option will list the contents of subtrees recursively. The names of these subtrees are not shown in the listing, but you can tell GeoGig to display them by using the -t option along with the -d option.
  • The -a option will show IDs in their abbreviated form. Use a number to determine how many digits of the ID to display (-a 7 for seven digit IDs).

Here are some examples of the ls command:

Recursive list

geogig ls -r -t

Root tree/
    parks/
        2
        3
        4
        1

Verbose list

geogig ls -v parks

parks/
    2 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a bfd1d4bb75e0a4419243ef0ba9d6e9793d31cdab
    3 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a 84150cc07326358ac70777d4141a8cfdd8038323
    4 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a 5347d1b1b5d828f83e4065e227dcb848b4371637
    1 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a ce3e836bcb64f1b647e3dc9dd97700c584063533

Verbose and recursive list

geogig ls -v -r -t

Root tree/
   parks/ 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a 224f0086bc4e9b116e7b60dbc414e1cc8d829839
       2 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a bfd1d4bb75e0a4419243ef0ba9d6e9793d31cdab
       3 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a 84150cc07326358ac70777d4141a8cfdd8038323
       4 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a 5347d1b1b5d828f83e4065e227dcb848b4371637
       1 49852c03b8dd3c93fcbda7137abda9ad53a9311a ce3e836bcb64f1b647e3dc9dd97700c584063533

Verbose and recursive list with seven-digit IDs

geogig ls -v -r -t -a 7

Root tree/
   parks/ 49852c0 224f008
       2 49852c0 bfd1d4b
       3 49852c0 84150cc
       4 49852c0 5347d1b
       1 49852c0 ce3e836

Showing features

Describing an element in a GeoGig repository is done using the show command. It can be used to describe any type of object, unlike ls which needs to resolve to a tree.

The show command prints a formatted description of a given element. This description is a human-readable version of the element.

The command takes, as input, a string that defines the object to describe. All supported notations are allowed for both commands, as they are described in Referencing a GeoGig element.

Below, you can find the output of the show command for certain types of objects.

An exmplae of the show command with a tree:

geogig show parks

TREE ID:  0bbed3603377adfbd3b32afce4d36c2c2e59d9d4
SIZE:  50
NUMBER OF SUBTREES:  0
DEFAULT FEATURE TYPE ID:  6350a6955b124119850f5a6906f70dc02ebb31c9

DEFAULT FEATURE TYPE ATTRIBUTES
--------------------------------
agency: <STRING>
area: <DOUBLE>
len: <DOUBLE>
name: <STRING>
number_fac: <Long>
owner: <STRING>
parktype: <STRING>
the_geom: <MULTIPOLYGON>
usage: <STRING>

When specifying a single feature, the show command prints the values of all attributes and their corresponding names taken from the associated feature type.

geogig show HEAD:parks/1

ID:  ff51bfc2a36d02a3a51d72eef3e7f44de9c4e231

ATTRIBUTES
----------
agency: Medford School District
area: 636382.400857
len: 3818.6667552
name: Abraham Lincoln Elementary
number_fac: 4
owner: Medford School District
parktype: School Field
the_geom: MULTIPOLYGON (((-122.83646412838807 42.36016644633764, ...
usage: Public

The following example shows the output of the show command when used on a commit reference:

geogig show 509a481257c5791f50f5a35087e432247f9dc8b7

Commit:        509a481257c5791f50f5a35087e432247f9dc8b7
Author:        Author <author@example.com>
Committer:     Author <author@example.com>
Author date:   (3 hours ago) Mon Jan 21 13:58:55 CET 2013
Committer date:(3 hours ago) Mon Jan 21 13:58:55 CET 2013
Subject:       Updated geometry

You can also use a reference like HEAD to show the current state of the repository:

geogig show HEAD
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