GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)                                        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]
               [--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>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx}
              files. <SHA1> is a hash of the sorted object names to make the
              resulting filename based on the pack content, and 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.


       --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, which is the default.


       --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. 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&#8217;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.


       --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&#8217;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&#8217;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




                                                           GIT-PACK-OBJECTS(1)
