@@ -15,6 +15,18 @@ General
 * References should be parsed 'manually' to get around command invocation, but 
   be sure to be able to read packed refs.
 
+Object
+------
+* DataStream method should read the data itself. This would be easy once you have 
+  the actul loose object, but will be hard if it is in a pack. In a distant future, 
+  we might be able to do that or at least implement direct object reading for loose
+  objects ( to safe a command call ). Currently object information comes from 
+  persistent commands anyway, so the penalty is not that high. The data_stream 
+  though is not based on persistent commands.
+  It would be good to improve things there as cat-file keeps all the data in a buffer
+  before it writes it. Hence it does not write to a stream directly, which can be 
+  bad if files are large, say 1GB :).
+
 Config
 ------
 * Expand .get* methods of GitConfigParser to support default value. If it is not None, 
 
@@ -144,6 +144,7 @@ def execute(self, command,
 			wrapper that will interrupt the process once it goes out of scope. If you 
 			use the command in iterators, you should pass the whole process instance 
 			instead of a single stream.
+			
 		``output_stream``
 			If set to a file-like object, data produced by the git command will be 
 			output to the given stream directly. 
 
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ class Object(LazyMixin):
 	This Object also serves as a constructor for instances of the correct type::
 	
 		inst = Object.new(repo,id)
+		inst.id		# objects sha in hex
+		inst.size	# objects uncompressed data size
+		inst.data	# byte string containing the whole data of the object
 	"""
 	TYPES = ("blob", "tree", "commit", "tag")
 	__slots__ = ("repo", "id", "size", "data" )
@@ -115,6 +118,15 @@ def __repr__(self):
 		"""
 		return '<git.%s "%s">' % (self.__class__.__name__, self.id)
 
+	@property
+	def data_stream(self):
+		"""
+		Returns 
+			File Object compatible stream to the uncompressed raw data of the object
+		"""
+		proc = self.repo.git.cat_file(self.type, self.id, as_process=True)
+		return utils.ProcessStreamAdapter(proc, "stdout") 
+
 
 class IndexObject(Object):
 	"""
 
@@ -52,3 +52,21 @@ def parse_actor_and_date(line):
 	m = _re_actor_epoch.search(line)
 	actor, epoch = m.groups()
 	return (Actor._from_string(actor), int(epoch))
+	
+	
+	
+class ProcessStreamAdapter(object):
+	"""
+	Class wireing all calls to the contained Process instance.
+	
+	Use this type to hide the underlying process to provide access only to a specified 
+	stream. The process is usually wrapped into an AutoInterrupt class to kill 
+	it if the instance goes out of scope.
+	"""
+	__slots__ = ("_proc", "_stream")
+	def __init__(self, process, stream_name):
+		self._proc = process
+		self._stream = getattr(process, stream_name)
+	
+	def __getattr__(self, attr):
+		return getattr(self._stream, attr)
@@ -48,6 +48,11 @@ def test_base_object(self):
 					assert not item.path.startswith("/")		# must be relative
 					assert isinstance(item.mode, int)
 			# END index object check
+			
+			# read from stream
+			data_stream = item.data_stream
+			data = data_stream.read()
+			assert data
 		# END for each object type to create
 
 		# each has a unique sha