<title>Fossil File Formats</title>
<h1 align="center">
Fossil File Formats
</h1>
The global state of a fossil repository is kept simple so that it can
endure in useful form for decades or centuries.
A fossil repository is intended to be readable,
searchable, and extensible by people not yet born.
The global state of a fossil repository is an unordered
set of <i>artifacts</i>.
An artifact might be a source code file, the text of a wiki page,
part of a trouble ticket, or one of several special artifacts
used to show the relationships between other artifacts within the
project. Each artifact is normally represented on disk as a separate
file. Artifacts can be text or binary.
In addition to the global state,
each fossil repository also contains local state.
The local state consists of web-page formatting
preferences, authorized users, ticket display and reporting formats,
and so forth. The global state is shared in common among all
repositories for the same project, whereas the local state is often
different in separate repositories.
The local state is not versioned and is not synchronized
with the global state.
The local state is not composed of artifacts and is not intended to be enduring.
This document is concerned with global state only. Local state is only
mentioned here in order to distinguish it from global state.
Each artifact in the repository is named by its SHA1 hash.
No prefixes or meta information is added to an artifact before
its hash is computed. The name of an artifact in the repository
is exactly the same SHA1 hash that is computed by sha1sum
on the file as it exists in your source tree.</p>
In the current implementation (as of 2015-12-23) the artifacts that
make up a fossil repository are stored as delta- and zlib-compressed
blobs in an <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/">SQLite</a> database. This
is an implementation detail and might change in a future release. For
the purpose of this article "file format" means the format of the artifacts,
not how the artifacts are stored on disk. It is the artifact format that
is intended to be enduring. The specifics of how artifacts are stored on
disk, though stable, is not intended to live as long as the
artifact format.
All of the artifacts can be extracted from a Fossil repository using
the "fossil deconstruct" command.
<h2>1.0 Special Artifacts</h2>
Some artifacts have a particular format which gives them special
meaning to fossil. Fossil recognizes:
<ul>
<li> [#manifest | Manifests] </li>
<li> [#directory | Directories] </li>
<li> [#cluster | Clusters] </li>
<li> [#ctrl | Tags] </li>
<li> [#wikichng | Wiki Pages] </li>
<li> [#tktchng | Ticket Changes] </li>
<li> [#attachment | Attachments] </li>
<li> [#event | TechNotes] </li>
</ul>
Any artifact is not one of the above eight special artifacts is a
"content" artifact. Every distinct version of every file under
management is a content artifact, as are attachments to wiki pages
and tickets.
Any artifact that follows the appropriate syntactic rules is a special
artifact. It is possible for the same artifact to be used as both
a special artifact and a content artifact, thought this is rare and
probably undesirable. (Future versions of Fossil might restrict attempts
to check-in special artifacts as content files.)
To prevent accidental occurrences of the same artifact being used as both
a special artifact and a content artifact, the syntactic rules for
special artifacts are very strict.
All special artifacts are pure UTF8 text. Newline characters
(ASCII 0x0a) separate the artifact into "cards".
Each card begins with a single
character "card type". Zero or more arguments may follow
the card type. All arguments are separated from each other
and from the card-type character by a single space
character (ASCII 0x20). There is no surplus white space between arguments
and no leading or trailing whitespace except for the newline
character that acts as the card separator.
All cards of a special artifact occur in strict sorted lexicographical order.
No card may be duplicated.
Some special artifacts (example: [#manifest|manifests])
may be PGP clear-signed, but otherwise special artifacts
may contain no additional text or data.
<a name="manifest"></a>
<h2>1.1 The Manifest Artifact</h2>
A manifest defines a check-in or version of the project
source tree. The manifest contains a list of artifacts for
each file in the project and the corresponding filenames, as
well as information such as parent check-ins, the name of the
programmer who created the check-in, the date and time when
the check-in was created, and any check-in comments associated
with the check-in.
Allowed cards in the manifest are as follows:
<blockquote>
<b>B</b> <i>baseline-manifest</i><br>
<b>C</b> <i>checkin-comment</i><br>
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br>
<b>F</b> <i>filename</i> ?<i>SHA1-hash</i>? ?<i>permissions</i>? ?<i>old-name</i>?<br>
<b>N</b> <i>mimetype</i><br>
<b>P</b> <i>SHA1-hash</i>+<br>
<b>Q</b> (<b>+</b>|<b>-</b>)<i>SHA1-hash</i> ?<i>SHA1-hash</i>?<br>
<b>R</b> <i>repository-checksum</i><br>
<b>T</b> (<b>+</b>|<b>-</b>|<b>*</b>)<i>tag-name</i> <b>*</b> ?<i>value</i>?<br>
<b>U</b> <i>user-login</i><br>
<b>Z</b> <i>manifest-checksum</i>
</blockquote>
A manifest may optionally have a single B-card. The B-card specifies
another manifest that serves as the "baseline" for this manifest. A
manifest that has a B-card is called a delta-manifest and a manifest
that omits the B-card is a baseline-manifest. The other manifest
identified by the argument of the B-card must be a baseline-manifest.
A baseline-manifest records the complete contents of a check-in.
A delta-manifest records only changes from its baseline.
A manifest must have exactly one C-card. The sole argument to
the C-card is a check-in comment that describes the check-in that
the manifest defines. The check-in comment is text. The following
escape sequences are applied to the text:
A space (ASCII 0x20) is represented as "\s" (ASCII 0x5C, 0x73). A
newline (ASCII 0x0a) is "\n" (ASCII 0x5C, x6E). A backslash
(ASCII 0x5C) is represented as two backslashes "\\". Apart from
space and newline, no other whitespace characters are allowed in
the check-in comment. Nor are any unprintable characters allowed
in the comment.
A manifest has zero or one N-cards. The N-card specifies the mimetype for the
text in the comment of the C-card. If the N-card is omitted, a default mimetype
is used.
A manifest must have exactly one D-card. The sole argument to
the D-card is a date-time stamp in the ISO8601 format. The
date and time should be in coordinated universal time (UTC).
The format must be one of:
<blockquote>
<i>YYYY</i><b>-</b><i>MM</i><b>-</b><i>DD</i><b>T</b><i>HH</i><b>:</b><i>MM</i><b>:</b><i>SS</i><br>
<i>YYYY</i><b>-</b><i>MM</i><b>-</b><i>DD</i><b>T</b><i>HH</i><b>:</b><i>MM</i><b>:</b><i>SS</i><b>.</b><i>SSS</i>
</blockquote>
A manifest has zero or more F-cards. Each F-card identifies a file or
subdirectory
that is part of the check-in. There are one, two, three, or four
arguments. The first argument is the pathname of the file or
subdirectory in the
check-in relative to the root of the project file hierarchy. No ".."
or "." directories are allowed within the filename. Space characters
are escaped as in C-card comment text. Backslash characters and
newlines are not allowed within filenames. The directory separator
character is a forward slash (ASCII 0x2F). The second argument to the
F-card is the full 40-character lower-case hexadecimal SHA1 hash of
the content artifact, or of the [#directory|directory artifact] if
the "d" permission is present. The second argument is required for baseline
manifests but is optional for delta manifests. When the second
argument to the F-card is omitted, it means that the file has been
deleted relative to the baseline (files removed in baseline manifests
versions are <em>not</em> added as F-cards). The optional 3rd argument
defines any special access permissions associated with the file. This
can be defined as "x" to mean that the file is executable or "l"
(small letter ell) to mean a symlink or "d" to mean the entry describes
a subdirectory rather than a file. All files and subdirectories
are always readable and writable. This can be expressed by "w"
permission if desired but the "w" permission is optional and is ignored
by Fossil. The file format might be extended with new permission
letters in the future. The optional 4th argument is the name of the
same file as it existed in the parent check-in. If the name of the
file is unchanged from its parent, then the 4th argument is omitted.
Manifests may be either flat or hierarchical. A flat manifest lists
all files in the check-in, including all files in subdirectories. A
flat manifest may not include F-cards with the "d" permission. An
heirarchical manifest only lists the files or subdirectories at the
top-level of the check-in. An heirarchical manifest may not include
an F-card entries that have a directory separator character ("/").
An heirarchical manifest may not be a delta-manifest (it may not have
a B-card) nor may it be used as a baseline-manifest by some other
delta-manifest. Hierarchical manifests
are only recognized by Fossil versions 1.35 and later. Repositories
that contain hierarchical manifests will cause problems for earlier
versions of Fossil.
When an F-card refers to a subdirectory (that is to say, when the
F-card is part of an hierarchical manifest and contains the "d"
permission) then the referenced directory artifact must be a
[#directory|well-formed directory artifact] that contains a
G-card that exactly matches the name of the subdirectory as assigned
by the F-card. If these conditions are not met, then the artifact is
not a valid manifest.
A manifest has zero or one P-cards. Most manifests have one P-card.
The P-card has a varying number of arguments that
defines other manifests from which the current manifest
is derived. Each argument is an 40-character lowercase
hexadecimal SHA1 of the predecessor manifest. All arguments
to the P-card must be unique to that line.
The first predecessor is the direct ancestor of the manifest.
Other arguments define manifests with which the first was
merged to yield the current manifest. Most manifests have
a P-card with a single argument. The first manifest in the
project has no ancestors and thus has no P-card.
A manifest has zero or more Q-cards. A Q-card is similar to a P-card
in that it defines a predecessor to the current check-in. But
whereas a P-card defines the immediate ancestor or a merge
ancestor, the Q-card is used to identify a single check-in or a small
range of check-ins which were cherry-picked for inclusion in or
exclusion from the current manifest. The first argument of
the Q-card is the artifact ID of another manifest (the "target")
which has had its changes included or excluded in the current manifest.
The target is preceded by "+" or "-" to show inclusion or
exclusion, respectively. The optional second argument to the
Q-card is another manifest artifact ID which is the "baseline"
for the cherry-pick. If omitted, the baseline is the primary
parent of the target. The
changes included or excluded consist of all changes moving from
the baseline to the target.
The Q-card was added to the interface specification on 2011-02-26.
Older versions of Fossil will reject manifests that contain Q-cards.
A manifest may optionally have a single R-card. The R-card has
a single argument which is the MD5 checksum of all files in
the check-in except the manifest itself. The checksum is expressed
as 32-characters of lowercase hexadecimal. The checksum is
computed as follows: For each file in the check-in (except for
the manifest itself) in strict sorted lexicographical order,
take the pathname of the file relative to the root of the
repository, append a single space (ASCII 0x20), the
size of the file in ASCII decimal, a single newline
character (ASCII 0x0A), and the complete text of the file.
Compute the MD5 checksum of the result.
A manifest might contain one or more T-cards used to set
[./branching.wiki#tags | tags or properties]
on the check-in. The format of the T-card is the same as
described in <i>Control Artifacts</i> section below, except that the
second argument is the single character "<b>*</b>" instead of an
artifact ID. The <b>*</b> in place of the artifact ID indicates that
the tag or property applies to the current artifact. It is not
possible to encode the current artifact ID as part of an artifact,
since the act of inserting the artifact ID would change the artifact ID,
hence a <b>*</b> is used to represent "self". T-cards are typically
added to manifests in order to set the <b>branch</b> property and a
symbolic name when the check-in is intended to start a new branch.
Each manifest has a single U-card. The argument to the U-card is
the login of the user who created the manifest. The login name
is encoded using the same character escapes as is used for the
check-in comment argument to the C-card.
A manifest must have a single Z-card as its last line. The argument
to the Z-card is a 32-character lowercase hexadecimal MD5 hash
of all prior lines of the manifest up to and including the newline
character that immediately precedes the "Z". The Z-card is
a sanity check to prove that the manifest is well-formed and
consistent.
A sample manifest from Fossil itself can be seen
[/artifact/28987096ac | here].
<a name="directory"></a>
<h3>1.2 Directory Artifacts</h3>
A directory artifact describes the files and subdirectories within a
single directory of an hierarchical manifest. Directory artifacts
are only recognized by Fossil version 1.35 and later (circa 2015-12-23).
Directory artifacts contain zero or more F-cards and exactly one Z-card,
in the same format as a manifest. A directory artifact also contains
exactly one G-card with a single argument that is the pathname
of the directory relative to the root of the repository.
The format of the directory name in a G-card is
the same as the format of a filename in an F-card.
The F-cards in a directory artifact may not contain directory separator
characters. The content of subdirectories must be expressed using
additional directory artifacts referenced by F-cards with the "d"
permission. All F-cards in a directory artifact must contain at least
two arguments.
When an F-card X of directory artifact Y refers to
subdirectory Z (that is to say, when F-card X contains
the "d" permission and the second argument on X is the SHA1
hash of directory artifact Z) then the G-card of Z must
be the concatenation of the G-card on artifact Y, the
directory separator character "/" and the first argument to
the F-card X. Otherwise, the artifact Y is not a valid
directory artifact.
<a name="cluster"></a>
<h3>1.3 Clusters Artifacts</h3>
A cluster is an artifact that declares the existence of other artifacts.
Clusters are used during repository synchronization to help
reduce network traffic. As such, clusters are an optimization and
may be removed from a repository without loss or damage to the
underlying project code. Clusters may not be PGP clearsigned.
Allowed cards in the cluster are as follows:
<blockquote>
<b>M</b> <i>artifact-id</i><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i>
</blockquote>
A cluster contains one or more "M" cards followed by a single "Z"
line. Each M card has a single argument which is the artifact ID of
another artifact in the repository. The Z card work exactly like
the Z card of a manifest. The argument to the Z card is the
lower-case hexadecimal representation of the MD5 checksum of all
prior cards in the cluster. The Z-card is required.
An example cluster from Fossil can be seen
[/artifact/d03dbdd73a2a8 | here].
<a name="ctrl"></a>
<h3>1.4 Tag Artifacts</h3>
Tag artifacts are used to assign properties to other artifacts
within the repository. Tag artifacts where called "control artifacts"
in an earlier version of this document. Though their name has changed
in the documentation, their function has not.
Allowed cards in a tag artifact are as follows:
<blockquote>
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br />
<b>T</b> (<b>+</b>|<b>-</b>|<b>*</b>)<i>tag-name</i> <i>artifact-id</i> ?<i>value</i>?<br />
<b>U</b> <i>user-name</i><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i><br />
</blockquote>
A tag artifact must have one D card, one U card, one Z card and
one or more T cards. No other cards or other text is
allowed in a control artifact. Tag artifacts might be PGP
clearsigned.
The D card and the Z card of a tag artifact are the same
as in a manifest.
The T card represents a [./branching.wiki#tags | tag or property]
that is applied to
some other artifact. The T card has two or three values. The
second argument is the 40 character lowercase artifact ID of the artifact
to which the tag is to be applied. The
first value is the tag name. The first character of the tag
is either "+", "-", or "*". The "+" means the tag should be added
to the artifact. The "-" means the tag should be removed.
The "*" character means the tag should be added to the artifact
and all direct descendants (but not descendants through a merge) down
to but not including the first descendant that contains a
more recent "-", "*", or "+" tag with the same name.
The optional third argument is the value of the tag. A tag
without a value is a Boolean.
When two or more tags with the same name are applied to the
same artifact, the tag with the latest (most recent) date is
used.
Some tags have special meaning. The "comment" tag when applied
to a check-in will override the check-in comment of that check-in
for display purposes. The "user" tag overrides the name of the
check-in user. The "date" tag overrides the check-in date.
The "branch" tag sets the name of the branch that at check-in
belongs to. Symbolic tags begin with the "sym-" prefix.
The U card is the name of the user that created the control
artifact. The Z card is the usual required artifact checksum.
An example tag artifacts can be seen [/info/9d302ccda8 | here].
<a name="wikichng"></a>
<h3>1.5 Wiki Pages</h3>
A wiki artifact defines a single version of a single wiki
page. Wiki artifacts accept
the following card types:
<blockquote>
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br />
<b>L</b> <i>wiki-title</i><br />
<b>N</b> <i>mimetype</i><br />
<b>P</b> <i>parent-artifact-id</i>+<br />
<b>U</b> <i>user-name</i><br />
<b>W</b> <i>size</i> <b>\n</b> <i>text</i> <b>\n</b><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i>
</blockquote>
The D card is the date and time when the wiki page was edited.
The P card specifies the parent wiki pages, if any. The L card
gives the name of the wiki page. The optional N card specifies
the mimetype of the wiki text. If the N card is omitted, the
mimetype is assumed to be text/x-fossil-wiki.
The U card specifies the login
of the user who made this edit to the wiki page. The Z card is
the usual checksum over the entire artifact and is required.
The W card is used to specify the text of the wiki page. The
argument to the W card is an integer which is the number of bytes
of text in the wiki page. That text follows the newline character
that terminates the W card. The wiki text is always followed by one
extra newline.
An example wiki artifact can be seen
[/artifact?name=7b2f5fd0e0&txt=1 | here].
<a name="tktchng"></a>
<h3>1.6 Ticket Changes</h3>
A ticket-change artifact represents a change to a trouble ticket.
The following cards are allowed on a ticket change artifact:
<blockquote>
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br />
<b>J</b> ?<b>+</b>?<i>name</i> ?<i>value</i>?<br />
<b>K</b> <i>ticket-id</i><br />
<b>U</b> <i>user-name</i><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i>
</blockquote>
The D card is the usual date and time stamp and represents the point
in time when the change was entered. The U card is the login of the
programmer who entered this change. The Z card is the required checksum over
the entire artifact.
Every ticket has a distinct ticket-id:
40-character lower-case hexadecimal number.
The ticket-id is given in the K-card. A ticket exists if it contains one or
more changes. The first "change" to a ticket is what brings the
ticket into existence.
J cards specify changes to the "value" of "fields" in the ticket.
If the <i>value</i> parameter of the J card is omitted, then the
field is set to an empty string.
Each fossil server has a ticket configuration which specifies the fields its
understands. The ticket configuration is part of the local state for
the repository and thus can vary from one repository to another.
Hence a J card might specify a <i>field</i> that do not exist in the
local ticket configuration. If a J card specifies a <i>field</i> that
is not in the local configuration, then that J card
is simply ignored.
The first argument of the J card is the field name. The second
value is the field value. If the field name begins with "+" then
the value is appended to the prior value. Otherwise, the value
on the J card replaces any previous value of the field.
The field name and value are both encoded using the character
escapes defined for the C card of a manifest.
An example ticket-change artifact can be seen
[/artifact/91f1ec6af053 | here].
<a name="attachment"></a>
<h3>1.7 Attachments</h3>
An attachment artifact associates some other artifact that is the
attachment (the source artifact) with a ticket or wiki page or
technical note to which
the attachment is connected (the target artifact).
The following cards are allowed on an attachment artifact:
<blockquote>
<b>A</b> <i>filename target</i> ?<i>source</i>?<br />
<b>C</b> <i>comment</i><br />
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br />
<b>N</b> <i>mimetype</i><br />
<b>U</b> <i>user-name</i><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i>
</blockquote>
The A card specifies a filename for the attachment in its first argument.
The second argument to the A card is the name of the wiki page or
ticket or technical note to which the attachment is connected. The
third argument is either missing or else it is the 40-character artifact
ID of the attachment itself. A missing third argument means that the
attachment should be deleted.
The C card is an optional comment describing what the attachment is about.
The C card is optional, but there can only be one.
A single D card is required to give the date and time when the attachment
was applied.
There may be zero or one N cards. The N card specifies the mimetype of the
comment text provided in the C card. If the N card is omitted, the C card
mimetype is taken to be text/plain.
A single U card gives the name of the user who added the attachment.
If an attachment is added anonymously, then the U card may be omitted.
The Z card is the usual checksum over the rest of the attachment artifact.
The Z card is required.
<a name="event"></a>
<h3>1.8 Technical Notes</h3>
A technical note or "technote" artifact (formerly known as an "event" artifact)
associates a timeline comment and a page of text
(similar to a wiki page) with a point in time. Technotes can be used
to record project milestones, release notes, blog entries, process
checkpoints, or news articles.
The following cards are allowed on an technote artifact:
<blockquote>
<b>C</b> <i>comment</i><br>
<b>D</b> <i>time-and-date-stamp</i><br />
<b>E</b> <i>technote-time</i> <i>technote-id</i><br />
<b>N</b> <i>mimetype</i><br />
<b>P</b> <i>parent-artifact-id</i>+<br />
<b>T</b> <b>+</b><i>tag-name</i> <b>*</b> ?<i>value</i>?<br />
<b>U</b> <i>user-name</i><br />
<b>W</b> <i>size</i> <b>\n</b> <i>text</i> <b>\n</b><br />
<b>Z</b> <i>checksum</i>
</blockquote>
The C card contains text that is displayed on the timeline for the
technote. The C card is optional, but there can only be one.
A single D card is required to give the date and time when the
technote artifact was created. This is different from the time at which
the technote appears on the timeline.
A single E card gives the time of the technote (the point on the timeline
where the technote is displayed) and a unique identifier for the technote.
When there are multiple artifacts with the same technote-id, the one with
the most recent D card is the only one used. The technote-id must be a
40-character lower-case hexadecimal string.
The optional N card specifies the mimetype of the text of the technote
that is contained in the W card. If the N card is omitted, then the
W card text mimetype is assumed to be text/x-fossil, which is the
Fossil wiki format.
The optional P card specifies a prior technote with the same technote-id
from which the current technote is an edit. The P card is a hint to the
system that it might be space efficient to store one technote as a delta of
the other.
A technote might contain one or more T-cards used to set
[./branching.wiki#tags | tags or properties]
on the technote. The format of the T-card is the same as
described in [#ctrl | Tag Artifacts] section above, except that the
second argument is the single character "<b>*</b>" instead of an
artifact ID and the name is always prefaced by "<b>+</b>".
The <b>*</b> in place of the artifact ID indicates that
the tag or property applies to the current artifact. It is not
possible to encode the current artifact ID as part of an artifact,
since the act of inserting the artifact ID would change the artifact ID,
hence a <b>*</b> is used to represent "self". The "<b>+</b>" on the
name means that tags can only be add and they can only be non-propagating
tags. In a technote, T cards are normally used to set the background
display color for timelines.
The optional U card gives name of the user who entered the technote.
A single W card provides wiki text for the document associated with the
technote. The format of the W card is exactly the same as for a
[#wikichng | wiki artifact].
The Z card is the required checksum over the rest of the artifact.
<a name="summary"></a>
<h2>2.0 Card Summary</h2>
The following table summarizes the various kinds of cards that appear
on Fossil artifacts. A blank entry means that combination of card and
artifact is not legal. A number or range of numbers indicates the number
of times a card may (or must) appear in the corresponding artifact type.
e.g. a value of 1 indicates a required unique card and 1+ indicates that one
or more such cards are required.
<table border=1 width="100%">
<tr>
<th rowspan=2 valign=bottom>Card Format</th>
<th colspan=8>Used By</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Manifest</th>
<th>Directory</th>
<th>Cluster</th>
<th>Tag</th>
<th>Wiki</th>
<th>Ticket</th>
<th>Attachment</th>
<th>Technote</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>A</b> <i>filename</i> <i>target</i> ?<i>source</i>?</td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>B</b> <i>baseline</i></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1*</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td><td colspan='8'>* = Required for delta manifests,
Disallowed for hierarchical manifests.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td><b>C</b> <i>comment-text</i></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>D</b> <i>date-time-stamp</i></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>E</b> <i>technote-time technote-id</i></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>F</b> <i>filename</i> ?<i>uuid</i>? ?<i>permissions</i>? ?<i>oldname</i>?</td>
<td align=center><b>0+</b></td>
<td align=center><b>0+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>G</b> <i>fileame</i>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>J</b> <i>name</i> ?<i>value</i>?</td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>K</b> <i>ticket-uuid</i></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>L</b> <i>wiki-title</i></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>M</b> <i>uuid</i></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>N</b> <i>mimetype</i></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>P</b> <i>uuid ...</i></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Q</b> (<b>+</b>|<b>-</b>)<i>uuid</i> ?<i>uuid</i>?</td>
<td align=center><b>0+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>R</b> <i>md5sum</i></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<tr>
<td><b>T</b> (<b>+</b>|<b>*</b>|<b>-</b>)<i>tagname</i> <i>uuid</i> ?<i>value</i>?</td>
<td align=center><b>0+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1+</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>0+</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>U</b> <i>username</i></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>0-1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>W</b> <i>size</i></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Z</b> <i>md5sum</i></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
<td align=center><b>1</b></td>
</tr>
</table>
<a name="addenda"></a>
<h2>3.0 Addenda</h2>
This section contains additional information about the low-level artifact
formats of Fossil.
<h3>3.1 R-Card Hash Calculation</h3>
Given a manifest file named <tt>MF</tt>, the following Bash shell code
demonstrates how to compute the value of the R card in that manifest.
This example uses manifest [28987096ac]. Lines starting with <tt>#</tt> are
shell input and other lines are output. This demonstration assumes that the
file versions represented by the input manifest are checked out
under the current directory.
<nowiki><pre>
# head MF
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
C Make\sthe\s"clearsign"\sPGP\ssigning\sdefault\sto\soff.
D 2010-02-23T15:33:14
F BUILD.txt 4f7988767e4e48b29f7eddd0e2cdea4555b9161c
F COPYRIGHT-GPL2.txt 06877624ea5c77efe3b7e39b0f909eda6e25a4ec
...
# grep '^R ' MF
R c0788982781981c96a0d81465fec7192
# for i in $(awk '/^F /{print $2}' MF); do \
echo $i $(stat -c '%s' $i); \
cat $i; \
done | md5sum
c0788982781981c96a0d81465fec7192 -
</pre></nowiki>
Minor caveats: the above demonstration will work only when none of the
filenames in the manifest are "fossilized" (encoded) because they contain
spaces. In that case the shell-generated hash would differ because the
<tt>stat</tt> calls will fail to find such files (which are output in encoded
form here). That approach also won't work for delta manifests. Calculating
the R-card for delta manifests requires traversing both the delta and its baseline in
lexical order of the files, preferring the delta's copy if both contain
a given file.
<h3>3.2 Different Kinds Of Manifest Artifacts</h3>
The original (1.0) version of Fossil only supported flat baseline
manifests. That means that all the files of a check-in had to be
listed in every manifest. Because manifests are delta-encoded, there
is not a storage space issue. Fossil was originally designed
specifically to support the SQLite project, and as SQLite has fewer
than 2000 files on any give version, a flat baseline manifest design
worked well there and was simple to implement.
However, some project (ex: NetBSD) contain a huge number of files in
every version, and even though the manifests compressed will using
delta-compression, many CPU cycles had to be spent to decompress those
manifests. To help make Fossil more efficient for large projects like
NetBSD, the concept of a delta-manifest was added. This helped a lot
but was not a perfect solution.
Later, the concept of an hierarchical manifest was added. By breaking
up each manifest into many separate subdirectories it is hoped that
the processing of projects with many files can be better optimized.
The hierarchical manifest design also more closely resembles the low-level
file format used by Git, thus making pull and clone from Git repositories
easier.
In retrospect, it would have been better if Fossil had only
hierarchical manifests. But as there are many legacy repositories
that use flat manifests and delta manifests, all three forms must
be supported moving forward.