with the newly imported data.
The fast-import backend itself can import into an empty repository (one that
-has already been initialized by gitlink:git-init[1]) or incrementally
+has already been initialized by linkgit:git-init[1]) or incrementally
update an existing populated repository. Whether or not incremental
imports are supported from a particular foreign source depends on
the frontend program in use.
This information may be useful after importing projects
whose total object set exceeds the 4 GiB packfile limit,
as these commits can be used as edge points during calls
- to gitlink:git-pack-objects[1].
+ to linkgit:git-pack-objects[1].
--quiet::
Disable all non-fatal output, making fast-import silent when it
+
An example value is ``Tue Feb 6 11:22:18 2007 -0500''. The Git
parser is accurate, but a little on the lenient side. It is the
-same parser used by gitlink:git-am[1] when applying patches
+same parser used by linkgit:git-am[1] when applying patches
received from email.
+
Some malformed strings may be accepted as valid dates. In some of
+
Frontends should prefer the `raw` format if the source material
already uses UNIX-epoch format, can be coaxed to give dates in that
-format, or its format is easiliy convertible to it, as there is no
+format, or its format is easily convertible to it, as there is no
ambiguity in parsing.
`now`::
This particular format is supplied as its short to implement and
may be useful to a process that wants to create a new commit
right now, without needing to use a working directory or
-gitlink:git-update-index[1].
+linkgit:git-update-index[1].
+
If separate `author` and `committer` commands are used in a `commit`
the timestamps may not match, as the system clock will be polled
This command is optional and is not needed to perform
an import.
+`progress`::
+ Causes fast-import to echo the entire line to its own
+ standard output. This command is optional and is not needed
+ to perform an import.
+
`commit`
~~~~~~~~
Create or update a branch with a new commit, recording one logical
and `filedeleteall` commands
may be included to update the contents of the branch prior to
creating the commit. These commands may be supplied in any order.
-However it is recommended that a `filedeleteall` command preceed
+However it is recommended that a `filedeleteall` command precede
all `filemodify`, `filecopy` and `filerename` commands in the same
commit, as `filedeleteall`
wipes the branch clean (see below).
Omitting the `from` command in the first commit of a new branch
will cause fast-import to create that commit with no ancestor. This
tends to be desired only for the initial commit of a project.
+If the frontend creates all files from scratch when making a new
+branch, a `merge` command may be used instead of `from` to start
+the commit with an empty tree.
Omitting the `from` command on existing branches is usually desired,
as the current commit on that branch is automatically assumed to
be the first ancestor of the new commit.
+
The reason fast-import uses `:` to denote a mark reference is this character
is not legal in a Git branch name. The leading `:` makes it easy
-to distingush between the mark 42 (`:42`) and the branch 42 (`42`
+to distinguish between the mark 42 (`:42`) and the branch 42 (`42`
or `refs/heads/42`), or an abbreviated SHA-1 which happened to
consist only of base-10 digits.
+
* A complete 40 byte or abbreviated commit SHA-1 in hex.
* Any valid Git SHA-1 expression that resolves to a commit. See
- ``SPECIFYING REVISIONS'' in gitlink:git-rev-parse[1] for details.
+ ``SPECIFYING REVISIONS'' in linkgit:git-rev-parse[1] for details.
The special case of restarting an incremental import from the
current branch value should be written as:
`merge`
^^^^^^^
-Includes one additional ancestor commit, and makes the current
-commit a merge commit. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per
+Includes one additional ancestor commit. If the `from` command is
+omitted when creating a new branch, the first `merge` commit will be
+the first ancestor of the current commit, and the branch will start
+out with no files. An unlimited number of `merge` commands per
commit are permitted by fast-import, thereby establishing an n-way merge.
However Git's other tools never create commits with more than 15
additional ancestors (forming a 16-way merge). For this reason
it is suggested that frontends do not use more than 15 `merge`
-commands per commit.
+commands per commit; 16, if starting a new, empty branch.
Here `<committish>` is any of the commit specification expressions
also accepted by `from` (see above).
If an `LF` or double quote must be encoded into `<path>` shell-style
quoting should be used, e.g. `"path/with\n and \" in it"`.
-The value of `<path>` must be in canoncial form. That is it must not:
+The value of `<path>` must be in canonical form. That is it must not:
* contain an empty directory component (e.g. `foo//bar` is invalid),
* end with a directory separator (e.g. `foo/` is invalid),
complete set of bytes which normally goes into such a signature.
If signing is required, create lightweight tags from within fast-import with
`reset`, then create the annotated versions of those tags offline
-with the standard gitlink:git-tag[1] process.
+with the standard linkgit:git-tag[1] process.
`reset`
~~~~~~~
Delimited format::
A delimiter string is used to mark the end of the data.
fast-import will compute the length by searching for the delimiter.
- This format is primarly useful for testing and is not
+ This format is primarily useful for testing and is not
recommended for real data.
+
....
The `LF` after the command is optional (it used to be required).
+`progress`
+~~~~~~~~~~
+Causes fast-import to print the entire `progress` line unmodified to
+its standard output channel (file descriptor 1) when the command is
+processed from the input stream. The command otherwise has no impact
+on the current import, or on any of fast-import's internal state.
+
+....
+ 'progress' SP <any> LF
+ LF?
+....
+
+The `<any>` part of the command may contain any sequence of bytes
+that does not contain `LF`. The `LF` after the command is optional.
+Callers may wish to process the output through a tool such as sed to
+remove the leading part of the line, for example:
+
+====
+ frontend | git-fast-import | sed 's/^progress //'
+====
+
+Placing a `progress` command immediately after a `checkpoint` will
+inform the reader when the `checkpoint` has been completed and it
+can safely access the refs that fast-import updated.
+
+Crash Reports
+-------------
+If fast-import is supplied invalid input it will terminate with a
+non-zero exit status and create a crash report in the top level of
+the Git repository it was importing into. Crash reports contain
+a snapshot of the internal fast-import state as well as the most
+recent commands that lead up to the crash.
+
+All recent commands (including stream comments, file changes and
+progress commands) are shown in the command history within the crash
+report, but raw file data and commit messages are excluded from the
+crash report. This exclusion saves space within the report file
+and reduces the amount of buffering that fast-import must perform
+during execution.
+
+After writing a crash report fast-import will close the current
+packfile and export the marks table. This allows the frontend
+developer to inspect the repository state and resume the import from
+the point where it crashed. The modified branches and tags are not
+updated during a crash, as the import did not complete successfully.
+Branch and tag information can be found in the crash report and
+must be applied manually if the update is needed.
+
+An example crash:
+
+====
+ $ cat >in <<END_OF_INPUT
+ # my very first test commit
+ commit refs/heads/master
+ committer Shawn O. Pearce <spearce> 19283 -0400
+ # who is that guy anyway?
+ data <<EOF
+ this is my commit
+ EOF
+ M 644 inline .gitignore
+ data <<EOF
+ .gitignore
+ EOF
+ M 777 inline bob
+ END_OF_INPUT
+
+ $ git-fast-import <in
+ fatal: Corrupt mode: M 777 inline bob
+ fast-import: dumping crash report to .git/fast_import_crash_8434
+
+ $ cat .git/fast_import_crash_8434
+ fast-import crash report:
+ fast-import process: 8434
+ parent process : 1391
+ at Sat Sep 1 00:58:12 2007
+
+ fatal: Corrupt mode: M 777 inline bob
+
+ Most Recent Commands Before Crash
+ ---------------------------------
+ # my very first test commit
+ commit refs/heads/master
+ committer Shawn O. Pearce <spearce> 19283 -0400
+ # who is that guy anyway?
+ data <<EOF
+ M 644 inline .gitignore
+ data <<EOF
+ * M 777 inline bob
+
+ Active Branch LRU
+ -----------------
+ active_branches = 1 cur, 5 max
+
+ pos clock name
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ 1) 0 refs/heads/master
+
+ Inactive Branches
+ -----------------
+ refs/heads/master:
+ status : active loaded dirty
+ tip commit : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
+ old tree : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
+ cur tree : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
+ commit clock: 0
+ last pack :
+
+
+ -------------------
+ END OF CRASH REPORT
+====
+
Tips and Tricks
---------------
The following tips and tricks have been collected from various
When committing fixups, consider using `merge` to connect the
commit(s) which are supplying file revisions to the fixup branch.
-Doing so will allow tools such as gitlink:git-blame[1] to track
+Doing so will allow tools such as linkgit:git-blame[1] to track
through the real commit history and properly annotate the source
files.
Import Now, Repack Later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As soon as fast-import completes the Git repository is completely valid
-and ready for use. Typicallly this takes only a very short time,
+and ready for use. Typically this takes only a very short time,
even for considerably large projects (100,000+ commits).
However repacking the repository is necessary to improve data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are repacking very old imported data (e.g. older than the
last year), consider expending some extra CPU time and supplying
-\--window=50 (or higher) when you run gitlink:git-repack[1].
+\--window=50 (or higher) when you run linkgit:git-repack[1].
This will take longer, but will also produce a smaller packfile.
You only need to expend the effort once, and everyone using your
project will benefit from the smaller repository.
+Include Some Progress Messages
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+Every once in a while have your frontend emit a `progress` message
+to fast-import. The contents of the messages are entirely free-form,
+so one suggestion would be to output the current month and year
+each time the current commit date moves into the next month.
+Your users will feel better knowing how much of the data stream
+has been processed.
+
Packfile Optimization
---------------------
------------------
There are a number of factors which affect how much memory fast-import
requires to perform an import. Like critical sections of core
-Git, fast-import uses its own memory allocators to ammortize any overheads
-associated with malloc. In practice fast-import tends to ammoritize any
+Git, fast-import uses its own memory allocators to amortize any overheads
+associated with malloc. In practice fast-import tends to amortize any
malloc overheads to 0, due to its use of large block allocations.
per object
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trees (aka directories) use just 12 bytes of memory on top of the
memory required for their entries (see ``per active file'' below).
-The cost of a tree is virtually 0, as its overhead ammortizes out
+The cost of a tree is virtually 0, as its overhead amortizes out
over the individual file entries.
per active file entry
GIT
---
-Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
+Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite