35d1856b55edc9feb87eb162a56ffd7c9fe15f2f
1 git-pack-objects(1)
2 ===================
4 NAME
5 ----
6 git-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects
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
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.
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.
29 Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
30 any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES)
31 enables git to read from such an archive.
33 'git-unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and
34 expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file
35 one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull
36 commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network
37 transport by their peers.
39 In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed
40 whole, or as a difference from some other object. The latter is
41 often called a delta.
44 OPTIONS
45 -------
46 base-name::
47 Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using
48 <base-name> to determine the name of the created file.
49 When this option is used, the two files are written in
50 <base-name>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx} files. <SHA1> is a hash
51 of the sorted object names to make the resulting filename
52 based on the pack content, and written to the standard
53 output of the command.
55 --stdout::
56 Write the pack contents (what would have been written to
57 .pack file) out to the standard output.
59 --revs::
60 Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of
61 individual object names. The revision arguments are processed
62 the same way as linkgit:git-rev-list[1] with `--objects` flag
63 uses its `commit` arguments to build the list of objects it
64 outputs. The objects on the resulting list are packed.
66 --unpacked::
67 This implies `--revs`. When processing the list of
68 revision arguments read from the standard input, limit
69 the objects packed to those that are not already packed.
71 --all::
72 This implies `--revs`. In addition to the list of
73 revision arguments read from the standard input, pretend
74 as if all refs under `$GIT_DIR/refs` are specified to be
75 included.
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.
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.
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.
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.
111 --incremental::
112 This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored
113 even if it appears in the standard input.
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).
121 --non-empty::
122 Only create a packed archive if it would contain at
123 least one object.
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.
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.
142 -q::
143 This flag makes the command not to report its progress
144 on the standard error stream.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
195 Author
196 ------
197 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
199 Documentation
200 -------------
201 Documentation by Junio C Hamano
203 SEE ALSO
204 --------
205 linkgit:git-rev-list[1]
206 linkgit:git-repack[1]
207 linkgit:git-prune-packed[1]
209 GIT
210 ---
211 Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite