GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)NAMEgit-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects
SYNOPSIS
git pack-objects [-q | --progress | --all-progress] [--all-progress-implied]
[--no-reuse-delta] [--delta-base-offset] [--non-empty]
[--local] [--incremental] [--window=<n>] [--depth=<n>]
[--revs [--unpacked | --all]] [--stdout | base-name]
[--keep-true-parents] < object-list
DESCRIPTION
Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes a packed
archive with specified base-name, or to the standard output.
A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer a set of objects
between two repositories as well as an access efficient archival for-
mat. In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed
whole or as a difference from some other object. The latter is often
called a delta.
The packed archive format (.pack) is designed to be self-contained so
that it can be unpacked without any further information. Therefore,
each object that a delta depends upon must be present within the pack.
A pack index file (.idx) is generated for fast, random access to the
objects in the pack. Placing both the index file (.idx) and the packed
archive (.pack) in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES) enables
git to read from the pack archive.
The git unpack-objects command can read the packed archive and expand
the objects contained in the pack into "one-file one-object" format;
this is typically done by the smart-pull commands when a pack is cre-
ated on-the-fly for efficient network transport by their peers.
OPTIONS
base-name
Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using <base-name>
to determine the name of the created file. When this option is
used, the two files are written in <base-name>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx}
files. <SHA1> is a hash of the sorted object names to make the
resulting filename based on the pack content, and written to the
standard output of the command.
--stdout
Write the pack contents (what would have been written to .pack
file) out to the standard output.
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GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)--revs Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of
individual object names. The revision arguments are processed
the same way as git rev-list with the --objects flag uses its
commit arguments to build the list of objects it outputs. The
objects on the resulting list are packed.
--unpacked
This implies --revs. When processing the list of revision argu-
ments read from the standard input, limit the objects packed to
those that are not already packed.
--all This implies --revs. In addition to the list of revision argu-
ments read from the standard input, pretend as if all refs under
refs/ are specified to be included.
--include-tag
Include unasked-for annotated tags if the object they reference
was included in the resulting packfile. This can be useful to
send new tags to native git clients.
--window=<n>, --depth=<n>
These two options affect how the objects contained in the pack
are stored using delta compression. The objects are first inter-
nally sorted by type, size and optionally names and compared
against the other objects within --window to see if using delta
compression saves space. --depth limits the maximum delta depth;
making it too deep affects the performance on the unpacker side,
because delta data needs to be applied that many times to get to
the necessary object. The default value for --window is 10 and
--depth is 50.
--window-memory=<n>
This option provides an additional limit on top of --window; the
window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take up
more than <n> bytes in memory. This is useful in repositories
with a mix of large and small objects to not run out of memory
with a large window, but still be able to take advantage of the
large window for the smaller objects. The size can be suffixed
with "k", "m", or "g". --window-memory=0 makes memory usage
unlimited, which is the default.
--max-pack-size=<n>
Maximum size of each output pack file. The size can be suffixed
with "k", "m", or "g". The minimum size allowed is limited to 1
MiB. If specified, multiple packfiles may be created. The
default is unlimited, unless the config variable pack.packSize-
Limit is set.
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GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)--honor-pack-keep
This flag causes an object already in a local pack that has a
.keep file to be ignored, even if it it would have otherwise
been packed.
--incremental
This flag causes an object already in a pack to be ignored even
if it would have otherwise been packed.
--local
This flag causes an object that is borrowed from an alternate
object store to be ignored even if it would have otherwise been
packed.
--non-empty
Only create a packed archive if it would contain at least one
object.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by
default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is speci-
fied. This flag forces progress status even if the standard
error stream is not directed to a terminal.
--all-progress
When --stdout is specified then progress report is displayed
during the object count and compression phases but inhibited
during the write-out phase. The reason is that in some cases the
output stream is directly linked to another command which may
wish to display progress status of its own as it processes
incoming pack data. This flag is like --progress except that it
forces progress report for the write-out phase as well even if
--stdout is used.
--all-progress-implied
This is used to imply --all-progress whenever progress display
is activated. Unlike --all-progress this flag doesn’t
actually force any progress display by itself.
-q This flag makes the command not to report its progress on the
standard error stream.
--no-reuse-delta
When creating a packed archive in a repository that has existing
packs, the command reuses existing deltas. This sometimes
results in a slightly suboptimal pack. This flag tells the
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GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)
command not to reuse existing deltas but compute them from
scratch.
--no-reuse-object
This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at
all, including non deltified object, forcing recompression of
everything. This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the
obscure case where wholesale enforcement of a different compres-
sion level on the packed data is desired.
--compression=<n>
Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the
generated pack. If not specified, pack compression level is
determined first by pack.compression, then by core.compression,
and defaults to -1, the zlib default, if neither is set. Add
--no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression
level on all data no matter the source.
--thin Create a "thin" pack by omitting the common objects between a
sender and a receiver in order to reduce network transfer. This
option only makes sense in conjunction with --stdout.
Note: A thin pack violates the packed archive format by omitting
required objects and is thus unusable by git without making it
self-contained. Use git index-pack --fix-thin (see
git-index-pack(1)) to restore the self-contained property.
--delta-base-offset
A packed archive can express base object of a delta as either
20-byte object name or as an offset in the stream, but older
version of git does not understand the latter. By default, git
pack-objects only uses the former format for better compatibil-
ity. This option allows the command to use the latter format for
compactness. Depending on the average delta chain length, this
option typically shrinks the resulting packfile by 3-5 per-cent.
--threads=<n>
Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best
delta matches. This requires that pack-objects be compiled with
pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning. This
is meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines. The
required amount of memory for the delta search window is however
multiplied by the number of threads. Specifying 0 will cause git
to auto-detect the number of CPU’s and set the number of
threads accordingly.
--index-version=<version>[,<offset>]
This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows to
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force the version for the generated pack index, and to force
64-bit index entries on objects located above the given offset.
--keep-true-parents
With this option, parents that are hidden by grafts are packed
nevertheless.
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org: mailto:torvalds@osdl.org>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano
SEE ALSOgit-rev-list(1)git-repack(1)git-prune-packed(1)GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
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