GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1) Git Manual 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 [--filter=<filter-spec>] | base-name]
[--shallow] [--keep-true-parents] < object-list
DESCRIPTION
Reads list of objects from the standard input, and writes either one or more packed archives with the specified base-name to disk, or a
packed archive 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 pairs of files (.pack and .idx), using <base-name> to determine the name of the created file. When this option is used, the
two files in a pair 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>
In unusual scenarios, you may not be able to create files larger than a certain size on your filesystem, and this option can be used to
tell the command to split the output packfile into multiple independent packfiles, each not larger than the given size. The size can be
suffixed with "k", "m", or "g". The minimum size allowed is limited to 1 MiB. This option 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.
--filter=<filter-spec>
Requires --stdout. Omits certain objects (usually blobs) from the resulting packfile. See git-rev-list(1) for valid <filter-spec>
forms.
--no-filter
Turns off any previous --filter= argument.
--missing=<missing-action>
A debug option to help with future "partial clone" development. This option specifies how missing objects are handled.
The form --missing=error requests that pack-objects stop with an error if a missing object is encountered. This is the default action.
The form --missing=allow-any will allow object traversal to continue if a missing object is encountered. Missing objects will silently
be omitted from the results.
The form --missing=allow-promisor is like allow-any, but will only allow object traversal to continue for EXPECTED promisor missing
objects. Unexpected missing object will raise an error.
--exclude-promisor-objects
Omit objects that are known to be in the promisor remote. (This option has the purpose of operating only on locally created objects, so
that when we repack, we still maintain a distinction between locally created objects [without .promisor] and objects from the promisor
remote [with .promisor].) This is used with partial clone.
SEE ALSO
git-rev-list(1) git-repack(1) git-prune-packed(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.17.1 10/05/2018 GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)