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 | --progress | --all-progress] [--all-progress-implied] 13 [--no-reuse-delta] [--delta-base-offset] [--non-empty] 14 [--local] [--incremental] [--window=<n>] [--depth=<n>] 15 [--revs [--unpacked | --all]] 16 [--stdout [--filter=<filter-spec>] | base-name] 17 [--shallow] [--keep-true-parents] < object-list 18 19 20DESCRIPTION 21----------- 22Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes either one or 23more packed archives with the specified base-name to disk, or a packed 24archive to the standard output. 25 26A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer a set of objects 27between two repositories as well as an access efficient archival 28format. In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a 29compressed whole or as a difference from some other object. 30The latter is often called a delta. 31 32The packed archive format (.pack) is designed to be self-contained 33so that it can be unpacked without any further information. Therefore, 34each object that a delta depends upon must be present within the pack. 35 36A pack index file (.idx) is generated for fast, random access to the 37objects in the pack. Placing both the index file (.idx) and the packed 38archive (.pack) in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or 39any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES) 40enables Git to read from the pack archive. 41 42The 'git unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and 43expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file 44one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull 45commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network 46transport by their peers. 47 48 49OPTIONS 50------- 51base-name:: 52 Write into pairs of files (.pack and .idx), using 53 <base-name> to determine the name of the created file. 54 When this option is used, the two files in a pair are written in 55 <base-name>-<SHA-1>.{pack,idx} files. <SHA-1> is a hash 56 based on the pack content and is written to the standard 57 output of the command. 58 59--stdout:: 60 Write the pack contents (what would have been written to 61 .pack file) out to the standard output. 62 63--revs:: 64 Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of 65 individual object names. The revision arguments are processed 66 the same way as 'git rev-list' with the `--objects` flag 67 uses its `commit` arguments to build the list of objects it 68 outputs. The objects on the resulting list are packed. 69 Besides revisions, `--not` or `--shallow <SHA-1>` lines are 70 also accepted. 71 72--unpacked:: 73 This implies `--revs`. When processing the list of 74 revision arguments read from the standard input, limit 75 the objects packed to those that are not already packed. 76 77--all:: 78 This implies `--revs`. In addition to the list of 79 revision arguments read from the standard input, pretend 80 as if all refs under `refs/` are specified to be 81 included. 82 83--include-tag:: 84 Include unasked-for annotated tags if the object they 85 reference was included in the resulting packfile. This 86 can be useful to send new tags to native Git clients. 87 88--window=<n>:: 89--depth=<n>:: 90 These two options affect how the objects contained in 91 the pack are stored using delta compression. The 92 objects are first internally sorted by type, size and 93 optionally names and compared against the other objects 94 within --window to see if using delta compression saves 95 space. --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making 96 it too deep affects the performance on the unpacker 97 side, because delta data needs to be applied that many 98 times to get to the necessary object. 99 The default value for --window is 10 and --depth is 50. 100 101--window-memory=<n>:: 102 This option provides an additional limit on top of `--window`; 103 the window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take 104 up more than '<n>' bytes in memory. This is useful in 105 repositories with a mix of large and small objects to not run 106 out of memory with a large window, but still be able to take 107 advantage of the large window for the smaller objects. The 108 size can be suffixed with "k", "m", or "g". 109 `--window-memory=0` makes memory usage unlimited. The default 110 is taken from the `pack.windowMemory` configuration variable. 111 112--max-pack-size=<n>:: 113 In unusual scenarios, you may not be able to create files 114 larger than a certain size on your filesystem, and this option 115 can be used to tell the command to split the output packfile 116 into multiple independent packfiles, each not larger than the 117 given size. The size can be suffixed with 118 "k", "m", or "g". The minimum size allowed is limited to 1 MiB. 119 This option 120 prevents the creation of a bitmap index. 121 The default is unlimited, unless the config variable 122 `pack.packSizeLimit` is set. 123 124--honor-pack-keep:: 125 This flag causes an object already in a local pack that 126 has a .keep file to be ignored, even if it would have 127 otherwise been packed. 128 129--incremental:: 130 This flag causes an object already in a pack to be ignored 131 even if it would have otherwise been packed. 132 133--local:: 134 This flag causes an object that is borrowed from an alternate 135 object store to be ignored even if it would have otherwise been 136 packed. 137 138--non-empty:: 139 Only create a packed archive if it would contain at 140 least one object. 141 142--progress:: 143 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream 144 by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q 145 is specified. This flag forces progress status even if 146 the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal. 147 148--all-progress:: 149 When --stdout is specified then progress report is 150 displayed during the object count and compression phases 151 but inhibited during the write-out phase. The reason is 152 that in some cases the output stream is directly linked 153 to another command which may wish to display progress 154 status of its own as it processes incoming pack data. 155 This flag is like --progress except that it forces progress 156 report for the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is 157 used. 158 159--all-progress-implied:: 160 This is used to imply --all-progress whenever progress display 161 is activated. Unlike --all-progress this flag doesn't actually 162 force any progress display by itself. 163 164-q:: 165 This flag makes the command not to report its progress 166 on the standard error stream. 167 168--no-reuse-delta:: 169 When creating a packed archive in a repository that 170 has existing packs, the command reuses existing deltas. 171 This sometimes results in a slightly suboptimal pack. 172 This flag tells the command not to reuse existing deltas 173 but compute them from scratch. 174 175--no-reuse-object:: 176 This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at all, 177 including non deltified object, forcing recompression of everything. 178 This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the obscure case where 179 wholesale enforcement of a different compression level on the 180 packed data is desired. 181 182--compression=<n>:: 183 Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the 184 generated pack. If not specified, pack compression level is 185 determined first by pack.compression, then by core.compression, 186 and defaults to -1, the zlib default, if neither is set. 187 Add --no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression 188 level on all data no matter the source. 189 190--thin:: 191 Create a "thin" pack by omitting the common objects between a 192 sender and a receiver in order to reduce network transfer. This 193 option only makes sense in conjunction with --stdout. 194+ 195Note: A thin pack violates the packed archive format by omitting 196required objects and is thus unusable by Git without making it 197self-contained. Use `git index-pack --fix-thin` 198(see linkgit:git-index-pack[1]) to restore the self-contained property. 199 200--shallow:: 201 Optimize a pack that will be provided to a client with a shallow 202 repository. This option, combined with --thin, can result in a 203 smaller pack at the cost of speed. 204 205--delta-base-offset:: 206 A packed archive can express the base object of a delta as 207 either a 20-byte object name or as an offset in the 208 stream, but ancient versions of Git don't understand the 209 latter. By default, 'git pack-objects' only uses the 210 former format for better compatibility. This option 211 allows the command to use the latter format for 212 compactness. Depending on the average delta chain 213 length, this option typically shrinks the resulting 214 packfile by 3-5 per-cent. 215+ 216Note: Porcelain commands such as `git gc` (see linkgit:git-gc[1]), 217`git repack` (see linkgit:git-repack[1]) pass this option by default 218in modern Git when they put objects in your repository into pack files. 219So does `git bundle` (see linkgit:git-bundle[1]) when it creates a bundle. 220 221--threads=<n>:: 222 Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best 223 delta matches. This requires that pack-objects be compiled with 224 pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning. 225 This is meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines. 226 The required amount of memory for the delta search window is 227 however multiplied by the number of threads. 228 Specifying 0 will cause Git to auto-detect the number of CPU's 229 and set the number of threads accordingly. 230 231--index-version=<version>[,<offset>]:: 232 This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows 233 to force the version for the generated pack index, and to force 234 64-bit index entries on objects located above the given offset. 235 236--keep-true-parents:: 237 With this option, parents that are hidden by grafts are packed 238 nevertheless. 239 240--filter=<filter-spec>:: 241 Requires `--stdout`. Omits certain objects (usually blobs) from 242 the resulting packfile. See linkgit:git-rev-list[1] for valid 243 `<filter-spec>` forms. 244 245--no-filter:: 246 Turns off any previous `--filter=` argument. 247 248--missing=<missing-action>:: 249 A debug option to help with future "partial clone" development. 250 This option specifies how missing objects are handled. 251+ 252The form '--missing=error' requests that pack-objects stop with an error if 253a missing object is encountered. This is the default action. 254+ 255The form '--missing=allow-any' will allow object traversal to continue 256if a missing object is encountered. Missing objects will silently be 257omitted from the results. 258+ 259The form '--missing=allow-promisor' is like 'allow-any', but will only 260allow object traversal to continue for EXPECTED promisor missing objects. 261Unexpected missing object will raise an error. 262 263--exclude-promisor-objects:: 264 Omit objects that are known to be in the promisor remote. (This 265 option has the purpose of operating only on locally created objects, 266 so that when we repack, we still maintain a distinction between 267 locally created objects [without .promisor] and objects from the 268 promisor remote [with .promisor].) This is used with partial clone. 269 270SEE ALSO 271-------- 272linkgit:git-rev-list[1] 273linkgit:git-repack[1] 274linkgit:git-prune-packed[1] 275 276GIT 277--- 278Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite