1git-pack-objects(1) 2=================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 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 17DESCRIPTION 18----------- 19Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes a packed 20archive with specified base-name, or to the standard output. 21 22A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer set of objects 23between two repositories, and also is an archival format which 24is efficient to access. The packed archive format (.pack) is 25designed to be unpackable without having anything else, but for 26random access, accompanied with the pack index file (.idx). 27 28'git-unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and 29expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file 30one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull 31commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network 32transport by their peers. 33 34Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or 35any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES) 36enables git to read from such an archive. 37 38In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed 39whole, or as a difference from some other object. The latter is 40often called a delta. 41 42 43OPTIONS 44------- 45base-name:: 46 Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using 47 <base-name> to determine the name of the created file. 48 When this option is used, the two files are written in 49 <base-name>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx} files. <SHA1> is a hash 50 of the sorted object names to make the resulting filename 51 based on the pack content, and written to the standard 52 output of the command. 53 54--stdout:: 55 Write the pack contents (what would have been written to 56 .pack file) out to the standard output. 57 58--revs:: 59 Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of 60 individual object names. The revision arguments are processed 61 the same way as gitlink:git-rev-list[1] with `--objects` flag 62 uses its `commit` arguments to build the list of objects it 63 outputs. The objects on the resulting list are packed. 64 65--unpacked:: 66 This implies `--revs`. When processing the list of 67 revision arguments read from the standard input, limit 68 the objects packed to those that are not already packed. 69 70--all:: 71 This implies `--revs`. In addition to the list of 72 revision arguments read from the standard input, pretend 73 as if all refs under `$GIT_DIR/refs` are specified to be 74 included. 75 76--window=[N], --depth=[N]:: 77 These two options affect how the objects contained in 78 the pack are stored using delta compression. The 79 objects are first internally sorted by type, size and 80 optionally names and compared against the other objects 81 within --window to see if using delta compression saves 82 space. --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making 83 it too deep affects the performance on the unpacker 84 side, because delta data needs to be applied that many 85 times to get to the necessary object. 86 The default value for both --window and --depth is 10. 87 88--incremental:: 89 This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored 90 even if it appears in the standard input. 91 92--local:: 93 This flag is similar to `--incremental`; instead of 94 ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects 95 that are packed and not in the local object store 96 (i.e. borrowed from an alternate). 97 98--non-empty:: 99 Only create a packed archive if it would contain at 100 least one object. 101 102--progress:: 103 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream 104 by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q 105 is specified. This flag forces progress status even if 106 the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal. 107 108--all-progress:: 109 When --stdout is specified then progress report is 110 displayed during the object count and deltification phases 111 but inhibited during the write-out phase. The reason is 112 that in some cases the output stream is directly linked 113 to another command which may wish to display progress 114 status of its own as it processes incoming pack data. 115 This flag is like --progress except that it forces progress 116 report for the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is 117 used. 118 119-q:: 120 This flag makes the command not to report its progress 121 on the standard error stream. 122 123--no-reuse-delta:: 124 When creating a packed archive in a repository that 125 has existing packs, the command reuses existing deltas. 126 This sometimes results in a slightly suboptimal pack. 127 This flag tells the command not to reuse existing deltas 128 but compute them from scratch. 129 130--delta-base-offset:: 131 A packed archive can express base object of a delta as 132 either 20-byte object name or as an offset in the 133 stream, but older version of git does not understand the 134 latter. By default, git-pack-objects only uses the 135 former format for better compatibility. This option 136 allows the command to use the latter format for 137 compactness. Depending on the average delta chain 138 length, this option typically shrinks the resulting 139 packfile by 3-5 per-cent. 140 141 142Author 143------ 144Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 145 146Documentation 147------------- 148Documentation by Junio C Hamano 149 150See Also 151-------- 152gitlink:git-rev-list[1] 153gitlink:git-repack[1] 154gitlink:git-prune-packed[1] 155 156GIT 157--- 158Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 159