git-pack-objects(1)
NAME
git-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects
SYNOPSIS
git pack-objects [-q | --progress | --all-progress] [--all-progress-implied]
[--no-reuse-delta] [--delta-base-offset] [--non-empty]
[--local] [--incremental] [--window=<n>] [--depth=<n>]
[--revs [--unpacked | --all]] [--stdout | base-name]
[--shallow] [--keep-true-parents] < object-list
DESCRIPTION
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 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 the pack archive. The git unpack-objects command can read the packed archive and expand the objects contained in the pack into "one-file one-object" format; this is typically done by the smart-pull commands when a pack is created on-the-fly for efficient network transport by their peers.
OPTIONS
base-name
Write into a pair of files (.pack and .idx), using <base-name> to
determine the name of the created file. When this option is used,
the two files are written in <base-name>-<SHA-1>.{pack,idx} files.
<SHA-1> is a hash based on the pack content and is written to the
standard output of the command.
--stdout
Write the pack contents (what would have been written to .pack
file) out to the standard output.
--revs
Read the revision arguments from the standard input, instead of
individual object names. The revision arguments are processed the
same way as git rev-list with the --objects flag uses its commit
arguments to build the list of objects it outputs. The objects on
the resulting list are packed. Besides revisions, --not or
--shallow <SHA-1> lines are also accepted.
--unpacked
This implies --revs. When processing the list of revision arguments
read from the standard input, limit the objects packed to those
that are not already packed.
--all
This implies --revs. In addition to the list of revision arguments
read from the standard input, pretend as if all refs under refs/
are specified to be included.
--include-tag
Include unasked-for annotated tags if the object they reference was
included in the resulting packfile. This can be useful to send new
tags to native Git clients.
--window=<n>, --depth=<n>
These two options affect how the objects contained in the pack are
stored using delta compression. The objects are first internally
sorted by type, size and optionally names and compared against the
other objects within --window to see if using delta compression
saves space. --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making it too
deep affects the performance on the unpacker side, because delta
data needs to be applied that many times to get to the necessary
object. The default value for --window is 10 and --depth is 50.
--window-memory=<n>
This option provides an additional limit on top of --window; the
window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take up more
than <n> bytes in memory. This is useful in repositories with a mix
of large and small objects to not run out of memory with a large
window, but still be able to take advantage of the large window for
the smaller objects. The size can be suffixed with "k", "m", or
"g". --window-memory=0 makes memory usage unlimited. The default
is taken from the pack.windowMemory configuration variable.
--max-pack-size=<n>
Maximum size of each output pack file. The size can be suffixed
with "k", "m", or "g". The minimum size allowed is limited to 1
MiB. If specified, multiple packfiles may be created, which also
prevents the creation of a bitmap index. The default is unlimited,
unless the config variable pack.packSizeLimit is set.
--honor-pack-keep
This flag causes an object already in a local pack that has a .keep
file to be ignored, even if it would have otherwise been packed.
--incremental
This flag causes an object already in a pack to be ignored even if
it would have otherwise been packed.
--local
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 least one
object.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
not directed to a terminal.
--all-progress
When --stdout is specified then progress report is displayed during
the object count and compression phases but inhibited during the
write-out phase. The reason is that in some cases the output stream
is directly linked to another command which may wish to display
progress status of its own as it processes incoming pack data. This
flag is like --progress except that it forces progress report for
the write-out phase as well even if --stdout is used.
--all-progress-implied
This is used to imply --all-progress whenever progress display is
activated. Unlike --all-progress this flag doesn't actually force
any progress display by itself.
-q
This flag makes the command not to report its progress on the
standard error stream.
--no-reuse-delta
When creating a packed archive in a repository that has existing
packs, the command reuses existing deltas. This sometimes results
in a slightly suboptimal pack. This flag tells the command not to
reuse existing deltas but compute them from scratch.
--no-reuse-object
This flag tells the command not to reuse existing object data at
all, including non deltified object, forcing recompression of
everything. This implies --no-reuse-delta. Useful only in the
obscure case where wholesale enforcement of a different compression
level on the packed data is desired.
--compression=<n>
Specifies compression level for newly-compressed data in the
generated pack. If not specified, pack compression level is
determined first by pack.compression, then by core.compression, and
defaults to -1, the zlib default, if neither is set. 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 git-index-
pack(1)) to restore the self-contained property.
--shallow
Optimize a pack that will be provided to a client with a shallow
repository. This option, combined with --thin, can result in a
smaller pack at the cost of speed.
--delta-base-offset
A packed archive can express the base object of a delta as either a
20-byte object name or as an offset in the stream, but ancient
versions of Git don't understand the latter. By default, git
pack-objects only uses the former format for better compatibility.
This option allows the command to use the latter format for
compactness. Depending on the average delta chain length, this
option typically shrinks the resulting packfile by 3-5 per-cent.
Note: Porcelain commands such as git gc (see git-gc(1)), git repack
(see git-repack(1)) pass this option by default in modern Git when
they put objects in your repository into pack files. So does git
bundle (see git-bundle(1)) when it creates a bundle.
--threads=<n>
Specifies the number of threads to spawn when searching for best
delta matches. This requires that pack-objects be compiled with
pthreads otherwise this option is ignored with a warning. This is
meant to reduce packing time on multiprocessor machines. The
required amount of memory for the delta search window is however
multiplied by the number of threads. Specifying 0 will cause Git to
auto-detect the number of CPU's and set the number of threads
accordingly.
--index-version=<version>[,<offset>]
This is intended to be used by the test suite only. It allows to
force the version for the generated pack index, and to force 64-bit
index entries on objects located above the given offset.
--keep-true-parents
With this option, parents that are hidden by grafts are packed
nevertheless.
SEE ALSO
git-rev-list(1) git-repack(1) git-prune-packed(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
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