Documentation / git-pack-objects.txton commit Merge branch 'maint' (de81390)
   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 self contained so that it can be unpacked without
  26any further information, but for fast, random access to the objects
  27in the pack, a pack index file (.idx) will be generated.
  28
  29Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
  30any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES)
  31enables git to read from such an archive.
  32
  33The 'git-unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and
  34expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file
  35one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull
  36commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network
  37transport by their peers.
  38
  39In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed
  40whole, or as a difference from some other object.  The latter is
  41often called a delta.
  42
  43
  44OPTIONS
  45-------
  46base-name::
  47        Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using
  48        <base-name> to determine the name of the created file.
  49        When this option is used, the two files are written in
  50        <base-name>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx} files.  <SHA1> is a hash
  51        of the sorted object names to make the resulting filename
  52        based on the pack content, and written to the standard
  53        output of the command.
  54
  55--stdout::
  56        Write the pack contents (what would have been written to
  57        .pack file) out to the standard output.
  58
  59--revs::
  60        Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of
  61        individual object names.  The revision arguments are processed
  62        the same way as 'git-rev-list' with the `--objects` flag
  63        uses its `commit` arguments to build the list of objects it
  64        outputs.  The objects on the resulting list are packed.
  65
  66--unpacked::
  67        This implies `--revs`.  When processing the list of
  68        revision arguments read from the standard input, limit
  69        the objects packed to those that are not already packed.
  70
  71--all::
  72        This implies `--revs`.  In addition to the list of
  73        revision arguments read from the standard input, pretend
  74        as if all refs under `$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--honor-pack-keep::
 113        This flag causes an object already in a local pack that
 114        has a .keep file to be ignored, even if it appears in the
 115        standard input.
 116
 117--incremental::
 118        This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored
 119        even if it appears in the standard input.
 120
 121--local::
 122        This flag is similar to `--incremental`; instead of
 123        ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects
 124        that are packed and/or not in the local object store
 125        (i.e. borrowed from an alternate).
 126
 127--non-empty::
 128        Only create a packed archive if it would contain at
 129        least one object.
 130
 131--progress::
 132        Progress status is reported on the standard error stream
 133        by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q
 134        is specified. This flag forces progress status even if
 135        the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
 136
 137--all-progress::
 138        When --stdout is specified then progress report is
 139        displayed during the object count and deltification phases
 140        but inhibited during the write-out phase. The reason is
 141        that in some cases the output stream is directly linked
 142        to another command which may wish to display progress
 143        status of its own as it processes incoming pack data.
 144        This flag is like --progress except that it forces progress
 145        report for the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is
 146        used.
 147
 148-q::
 149        This flag makes the command not to report its progress
 150        on the standard error stream.
 151
 152--no-reuse-delta::
 153        When creating a packed archive in a repository that
 154        has existing packs, the command reuses existing deltas.
 155        This sometimes results in a slightly suboptimal pack.
 156        This flag tells the command not to reuse existing deltas
 157        but compute them from scratch.
 158
 159--no-reuse-object::
 160        This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at all,
 161        including non deltified object, forcing recompression of everything.
 162        This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the obscure case where
 163        wholesale enforcement of a different compression level on the
 164        packed data is desired.
 165
 166--compression=[N]::
 167        Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the
 168        generated pack.  If not specified,  pack compression level is
 169        determined first by pack.compression,  then by core.compression,
 170        and defaults to -1,  the zlib default,  if neither is set.
 171        Add --no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression
 172        level on all data no matter the source.
 173
 174--delta-base-offset::
 175        A packed archive can express base object of a delta as
 176        either 20-byte object name or as an offset in the
 177        stream, but older version of git does not understand the
 178        latter.  By default, 'git-pack-objects' only uses the
 179        former format for better compatibility.  This option
 180        allows the command to use the latter format for
 181        compactness.  Depending on the average delta chain
 182        length, this option typically shrinks the resulting
 183        packfile by 3-5 per-cent.
 184
 185--threads=<n>::
 186        Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best
 187        delta matches.  This requires that pack-objects be compiled with
 188        pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning.
 189        This is meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines.
 190        The required amount of memory for the delta search window is
 191        however multiplied by the number of threads.
 192        Specifying 0 will cause git to auto-detect the number of CPU's
 193        and set the number of threads accordingly.
 194
 195--index-version=<version>[,<offset>]::
 196        This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows
 197        to force the version for the generated pack index, and to force
 198        64-bit index entries on objects located above the given offset.
 199
 200
 201Author
 202------
 203Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 204
 205Documentation
 206-------------
 207Documentation by Junio C Hamano
 208
 209SEE ALSO
 210--------
 211linkgit:git-rev-list[1]
 212linkgit:git-repack[1]
 213linkgit:git-prune-packed[1]
 214
 215GIT
 216---
 217Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite