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]::
  83 --depth=[N]::
  84         These two options affect how the objects contained in
  85         the pack are stored using delta compression.  The
  86         objects are first internally sorted by type, size and
  87         optionally names and compared against the other objects
  88         within --window to see if using delta compression saves
  89         space.  --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making
  90         it too deep affects the performance on the unpacker
  91         side, because delta data needs to be applied that many
  92         times to get to the necessary object.
  93         The default value for --window is 10 and --depth is 50.
  94
  95 --window-memory=[N]::
  96         This option provides an additional limit on top of `--window`;
  97         the window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take
  98         up more than N bytes in memory.  This is useful in
  99         repositories with a mix of large and small objects to not run
 100         out of memory with a large window, but still be able to take
 101         advantage of the large window for the smaller objects.  The
 102         size can be suffixed with "k", "m", or "g".
 103         `--window-memory=0` makes memory usage unlimited, which is the
 104         default.
 105
 106 --max-pack-size=<n>::
 107         Maximum size of each output packfile, expressed in MiB.
 108         If specified,  multiple packfiles may be created.
 109         The default is unlimited, unless the config variable
 110         `pack.packSizeLimit` is set.
 111
 112 --incremental::
 113         This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored
 114         even if it appears in the standard input.
 115
 116 --local::
 117         This flag is similar to `--incremental`; instead of
 118         ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects
 119         that are packed and not in the local object store
 120         (i.e. borrowed from an alternate).
 121
 122 --non-empty::
 123         Only create a packed archive if it would contain at
 124         least one object.
 125
 126 --progress::
 127         Progress status is reported on the standard error stream
 128         by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q
 129         is specified. This flag forces progress status even if
 130         the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
 131
 132 --all-progress::
 133         When --stdout is specified then progress report is
 134         displayed during the object count and deltification phases
 135         but inhibited during the write-out phase. The reason is
 136         that in some cases the output stream is directly linked
 137         to another command which may wish to display progress
 138         status of its own as it processes incoming pack data.
 139         This flag is like --progress except that it forces progress
 140         report for the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is
 141         used.
 142
 143 -q::
 144         This flag makes the command not to report its progress
 145         on the standard error stream.
 146
 147 --no-reuse-delta::
 148         When creating a packed archive in a repository that
 149         has existing packs, the command reuses existing deltas.
 150         This sometimes results in a slightly suboptimal pack.
 151         This flag tells the command not to reuse existing deltas
 152         but compute them from scratch.
 153
 154 --no-reuse-object::
 155         This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at all,
 156         including non deltified object, forcing recompression of everything.
 157         This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the obscure case where
 158         wholesale enforcement of a different compression level on the
 159         packed data is desired.
 160
 161 --compression=[N]::
 162         Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the
 163         generated pack.  If not specified,  pack compression level is
 164         determined first by pack.compression,  then by core.compression,
 165         and defaults to -1,  the zlib default,  if neither is set.
 166         Add \--no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression
 167         level on all data no matter the source.
 168
 169 --delta-base-offset::
 170         A packed archive can express base object of a delta as
 171         either 20-byte object name or as an offset in the
 172         stream, but older version of git does not understand the
 173         latter.  By default, git-pack-objects only uses the
 174         former format for better compatibility.  This option
 175         allows the command to use the latter format for
 176         compactness.  Depending on the average delta chain
 177         length, this option typically shrinks the resulting
 178         packfile by 3-5 per-cent.
 179
 180 --threads=<n>::
 181         Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best
 182         delta matches.  This requires that pack-objects be compiled with
 183         pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning.
 184         This is meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines.
 185         The required amount of memory for the delta search window is
 186         however multiplied by the number of threads.
 187         Specifying 0 will cause git to auto-detect the number of CPU's
 188         and set the number of threads accordingly.
 189
 190 --index-version=<version>[,<offset>]::
 191         This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows
 192         to force the version for the generated pack index, and to force
 193         64-bit index entries on objects located above the given offset.
 194
 195
 196 Author
 197 ------
 198 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 199
 200 Documentation
 201 -------------
 202 Documentation by Junio C Hamano
 203
 204 SEE ALSO
 205 --------
 206 linkgit:git-rev-list[1]
 207 linkgit:git-repack[1]
 208 linkgit:git-prune-packed[1]
 209
 210 GIT
 211 ---
 212 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite