Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes a packed
archive with specified base-name, or to the standard output.
-A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer set of objects
-between two repositories, and also is an archival format which
-is efficient to access. The packed archive format (.pack) is
-designed to be self contained so that it can be unpacked without
-any further information, but for fast, random access to the objects
-in the pack, a pack index file (.idx) will be generated.
-
-Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
+A packed archive is an efficient way to transfer a set of objects
+between two repositories as well as an access efficient archival
+format. In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a
+compressed whole or as a difference from some other object.
+The latter is often called a delta.
+
+The packed archive format (.pack) is designed to be self-contained
+so that it can be unpacked without any further information. Therefore,
+each object that a delta depends upon must be present within the pack.
+
+A pack index file (.idx) is generated for fast, random access to the
+objects in the pack. Placing both the index file (.idx) and the packed
+archive (.pack) in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or
any of the directories on $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES)
-enables git to read from such an archive.
+enables git to read from the pack archive.
The 'git unpack-objects' command can read the packed archive and
expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file
commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network
transport by their peers.
-In a packed archive, an object is either stored as a compressed
-whole, or as a difference from some other object. The latter is
-often called a delta.
-
OPTIONS
-------
--honor-pack-keep::
This flag causes an object already in a local pack that
- has a .keep file to be ignored, even if it appears in the
- standard input.
+ has a .keep file to be ignored, even if it it would have
+ otherwise been packed.
--incremental::
- This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored
- even if it appears in the standard input.
+ This flag causes an object already in a pack to be ignored
+ even if it would have otherwise been packed.
--local::
- This flag is similar to `--incremental`; instead of
- ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects
- that are packed and/or not in the local object store
- (i.e. borrowed from an alternate).
+ This flag causes an object that is borrowed from an alternate
+ object store to be ignored even if it would have otherwise been
+ packed.
--non-empty::
Only create a packed archive if it would contain at
Add --no-reuse-object if you want to force a uniform compression
level on all data no matter the source.
+--thin::
+ Create a "thin" pack by omitting the common objects between a
+ sender and a receiver in order to reduce network transfer. This
+ option only makes sense in conjunction with --stdout.
++
+Note: A thin pack violates the packed archive format by omitting
+required objects and is thus unusable by git without making it
+self-contained. Use `git index-pack --fix-thin`
+(see linkgit:git-index-pack[1]) to restore the self-contained property.
+
--delta-base-offset::
A packed archive can express base object of a delta as
either 20-byte object name or as an offset in the