Documentation/git-pack-objects.txt

   1 git-pack-objects(1)
   2 ===================
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 git-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects
   7
   8
   9 SYNOPSIS
  10 --------
  11 [verse]
  12 'git-pack-objects' [-q] [--no-reuse-delta] [--delta-base-offset] [--non-empty]
  13         [--local] [--incremental] [--window=N] [--depth=N] [--all-progress]
  14         [--revs [--unpacked | --all]*] [--stdout | base-name] < object-list
  15
  16
  17 DESCRIPTION
  18 -----------
  19 Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes a packed
  20 archive with specified base-name, or to the standard output.
  21
  22 A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer set of objects
  23 between two repositories, and also is an archival format which
  24 is efficient to access.  The packed archive format (.pack) is
  25 designed to be self contained so that it can be unpacked without
  26 any further information, but for fast, random access to the objects
  27 in the pack, a pack index file (.idx) will be generated.
  28
  29 Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
  30 any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES)
  31 enables git to read from such an archive.
  32
  33 'git-unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and
  34 expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file
  35 one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull
  36 commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network
  37 transport by their peers.
  38
  39 In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed
  40 whole, or as a difference from some other object.  The latter is
  41 often called a delta.
  42
  43
  44 OPTIONS
  45 -------
  46 base-name::
  47         Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using
  48         <base-name> to determine the name of the created file.
  49         When this option is used, the two files are written in
  50         <base-name>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx} files.  <SHA1> is a hash
  51         of the sorted object names to make the resulting filename
  52         based on the pack content, and written to the standard
  53         output of the command.
  54
  55 --stdout::
  56         Write the pack contents (what would have been written to
  57         .pack file) out to the standard output.
  58
  59 --revs::
  60         Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of
  61         individual object names.  The revision arguments are processed
  62         the same way as linkgit:git-rev-list[1] with `--objects` flag
  63         uses its `commit` arguments to build the list of objects it
  64         outputs.  The objects on the resulting list are packed.
  65
  66 --unpacked::
  67         This implies `--revs`.  When processing the list of
  68         revision arguments read from the standard input, limit
  69         the objects packed to those that are not already packed.
  70
  71 --all::
  72         This implies `--revs`.  In addition to the list of
  73         revision arguments read from the standard input, pretend
  74         as if all refs under `$GIT_DIR/refs` are specified to be
  75         included.
  76
  77 --include-tag::
  78         Include unasked-for annotated tags if the object they
  79         reference was included in the resulting packfile.  This
  80         can be useful to send new tags to native git clients.
  81
  82 --window=[N], --depth=[N]::
  83         These two options affect how the objects contained in
  84         the pack are stored using delta compression.  The
  85         objects are first internally sorted by type, size and
  86         optionally names and compared against the other objects
  87         within --window to see if using delta compression saves
  88         space.  --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making
  89         it too deep affects the performance on the unpacker
  90         side, because delta data needs to be applied that many
  91         times to get to the necessary object.
  92         The default value for --window is 10 and --depth is 50.
  93
  94 --window-memory=[N]::
  95         This option provides an additional limit on top of `--window`;
  96         the window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take
  97         up more than N bytes in memory.  This is useful in
  98         repositories with a mix of large and small objects to not run
  99         out of memory with a large window, but still be able to take
 100         advantage of the large window for the smaller objects.  The
 101         size can be suffixed with "k", "m", or "g".
 102         `--window-memory=0` makes memory usage unlimited, which is the
 103         default.
 104
 105 --max-pack-size=<n>::
 106         Maximum size of each output packfile, expressed in MiB.
 107         If specified,  multiple packfiles may be created.
 108         The default is unlimited, unless the config variable
 109         `pack.packSizeLimit` is set.
 110
 111 --incremental::
 112         This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored
 113         even if it appears in the standard input.
 114
 115 --local::
 116         This flag is similar to `--incremental`; instead of
 117         ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects
 118         that are packed and not in the local object store
 119         (i.e. borrowed from an alternate).
 120
 121 --non-empty::
 122         Only create a packed archive if it would contain at
 123         least one object.
 124
 125 --progress::
 126         Progress status is reported on the standard error stream
 127         by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q
 128         is specified. This flag forces progress status even if
 129         the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
 130
 131 --all-progress::
 132         When --stdout is specified then progress report is
 133         displayed during the object count and deltification phases
 134         but inhibited during the write-out phase. The reason is
 135         that in some cases the output stream is directly linked
 136         to another command which may wish to display progress
 137         status of its own as it processes incoming pack data.
 138         This flag is like --progress except that it forces progress
 139         report for the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is
 140         used.
 141
 142 -q::
 143         This flag makes the command not to report its progress
 144         on the standard error stream.
 145
 146 --no-reuse-delta::
 147         When creating a packed archive in a repository that
 148         has existing packs, the command reuses existing deltas.
 149         This sometimes results in a slightly suboptimal pack.
 150         This flag tells the command not to reuse existing deltas
 151         but compute them from scratch.
 152
 153 --no-reuse-object::
 154         This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at all,
 155         including non deltified object, forcing recompression of everything.
 156         This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the obscure case where
 157         wholesale enforcement of a different compression level on the
 158         packed data is desired.
 159
 160 --compression=[N]::
 161         Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the
 162         generated pack.  If not specified,  pack compression level is
 163         determined first by pack.compression,  then by core.compression,
 164         and defaults to -1,  the zlib default,  if neither is set.
 165         Add \--no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression
 166         level on all data no matter the source.
 167
 168 --delta-base-offset::
 169         A packed archive can express base object of a delta as
 170         either 20-byte object name or as an offset in the
 171         stream, but older version of git does not understand the
 172         latter.  By default, git-pack-objects only uses the
 173         former format for better compatibility.  This option
 174         allows the command to use the latter format for
 175         compactness.  Depending on the average delta chain
 176         length, this option typically shrinks the resulting
 177         packfile by 3-5 per-cent.
 178
 179 --threads=<n>::
 180         Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best
 181         delta matches.  This requires that pack-objects be compiled with
 182         pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning.
 183         This is meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines.
 184         The required amount of memory for the delta search window is
 185         however multiplied by the number of threads.
 186         Specifying 0 will cause git to auto-detect the number of CPU's
 187         and set the number of threads accordingly.
 188
 189 --index-version=<version>[,<offset>]::
 190         This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows
 191         to force the version for the generated pack index, and to force
 192         64-bit index entries on objects located above the given offset.
 193
 194
 195 Author
 196 ------
 197 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 198
 199 Documentation
 200 -------------
 201 Documentation by Junio C Hamano
 202
 203 See Also
 204 --------
 205 linkgit:git-rev-list[1]
 206 linkgit:git-repack[1]
 207 linkgit:git-prune-packed[1]
 208
 209 GIT
 210 ---
 211 Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite