Documentation / technical / send-pack-pipeline.txton commit Merge branch 'maint' (de81390)
   1git-send-pack
   2=============
   3
   4Overall operation
   5-----------------
   6
   7. Connects to the remote side and invokes git-receive-pack.
   8
   9. Learns what refs the remote has and what commit they point at.
  10  Matches them to the refspecs we are pushing.
  11
  12. Checks if there are non-fast-forwards.  Unlike fetch-pack,
  13  the repository send-pack runs in is supposed to be a superset
  14  of the recipient in fast-forward cases, so there is no need
  15  for want/have exchanges, and fast-forward check can be done
  16  locally.  Tell the result to the other end.
  17
  18. Calls pack_objects() which generates a packfile and sends it
  19  over to the other end.
  20
  21. If the remote side is new enough (v1.1.0 or later), wait for
  22  the unpack and hook status from the other end.
  23
  24. Exit with appropriate error codes.
  25
  26
  27Pack_objects pipeline
  28---------------------
  29
  30This function gets one file descriptor (`fd`) which is either a
  31socket (over the network) or a pipe (local).  What's written to
  32this fd goes to git-receive-pack to be unpacked.
  33
  34    send-pack ---> fd ---> receive-pack
  35
  36The function pack_objects creates a pipe and then forks.  The
  37forked child execs pack-objects with --revs to receive revision
  38parameters from its standard input. This process will write the
  39packfile to the other end.
  40
  41    send-pack
  42       |
  43       pack_objects() ---> fd ---> receive-pack
  44          | ^ (pipe)
  45          v |
  46         (child)
  47
  48The child dup2's to arrange its standard output to go back to
  49the other end, and read its standard input to come from the
  50pipe.  After that it exec's pack-objects.  On the other hand,
  51the parent process, before starting to feed the child pipeline,
  52closes the reading side of the pipe and fd to receive-pack.
  53
  54    send-pack
  55       |
  56       pack_objects(parent)
  57          |
  58          v [0]
  59         pack-objects [0] ---> receive-pack
  60
  61
  62[jc: the pipeline was much more complex and needed documentation before
  63 I understood an earlier bug, but now it is trivial and straightforward.]