X-Git-Url: https://git.octo.it/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=36fef6ec041cd1d0d31c79a98f23a84e9a8691fd;hb=f98d863d2122e1b8781dfb9889df98876a26f315;hp=0ee49d4898c32d9c7321678c2109a87235ad4d84;hpb=348c4c66dacb1810a9bcd592e72f98a465233488;p=git.git

diff --git a/README b/README
index 0ee49d48..36fef6ec 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -396,8 +396,48 @@ git-commit-tree will return the name of the object that represents
 that commit, and you should save it away for later use. Normally,
 you'd commit a new `HEAD` state, and while git doesn't care where you
 save the note about that state, in practice we tend to just write the
-result to the file `.git/HEAD`, so that we can always see what the
-last committed state was.
+result to the file pointed at by `.git/HEAD`, so that we can always see
+what the last committed state was.
+
+Here is an ASCII art by Jon Loeliger that illustrates how
+various pieces fit together.
+
+------------
+
+                     commit-tree
+                      commit obj
+                       +----+
+                       |    |
+                       |    |
+                       V    V
+                    +-----------+
+                    | Object DB |
+                    |  Backing  |
+                    |   Store   |
+                    +-----------+
+                       ^
+           write-tree  |     |
+             tree obj  |     |
+                       |     |  read-tree
+                       |     |  tree obj
+                             V
+                    +-----------+
+                    |   Index   |
+                    |  "cache"  |
+                    +-----------+
+         update-index  ^
+             blob obj  |     |
+                       |     |
+    checkout-index -u  |     |  checkout-index
+             stat      |     |  blob obj
+                             V
+                    +-----------+
+                    |  Working  |
+                    | Directory |
+                    +-----------+
+
+------------
+
 
 6) Examining the data
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -424,7 +464,7 @@ tend to be small and fairly self-explanatory. In particular, if you
 follow the convention of having the top commit name in `.git/HEAD`,
 you can do
 
-		git-cat-file commit $(cat .git/HEAD)
+		git-cat-file commit HEAD
 
 to see what the top commit was.