GIT-REPACK(1)			  Git Manual			 GIT-REPACK(1)



NAME
       git-repack - Pack unpacked objects in a repository

SYNOPSIS
       git repack [-a] [-A] [-d] [-f] [-F] [-l] [-n] [-q] [-b] [-m] [--window=<n>] [--depth=<n>] [--threads=<n>] [--keep-pack=<pack-name>] [--write-midx]


DESCRIPTION
       This command is used to combine all objects that do not currently
       reside in a "pack", into a pack. It can also be used to re-organize
       existing packs into a single, more efficient pack.

       A pack is a collection of objects, individually compressed, with delta
       compression applied, stored in a single file, with an associated index
       file.

       Packs are used to reduce the load on mirror systems, backup engines,
       disk storage, etc.

OPTIONS
       -a
	   Instead of incrementally packing the unpacked objects, pack
	   everything referenced into a single pack. Especially useful when
	   packing a repository that is used for private development. Use with
	   -d. This will clean up the objects that git prune leaves behind,
	   but git fsck --full --dangling shows as dangling.

	   Note that users fetching over dumb protocols will have to fetch the
	   whole new pack in order to get any contained object, no matter how
	   many other objects in that pack they already have locally.

	   Promisor packfiles are repacked separately: if there are packfiles
	   that have an associated ".promisor" file, these packfiles will be
	   repacked into another separate pack, and an empty ".promisor" file
	   corresponding to the new separate pack will be written.

       -A
	   Same as -a, unless -d is used. Then any unreachable objects in a
	   previous pack become loose, unpacked objects, instead of being left
	   in the old pack. Unreachable objects are never intentionally added
	   to a pack, even when repacking. This option prevents unreachable
	   objects from being immediately deleted by way of being left in the
	   old pack and then removed. Instead, the loose unreachable objects
	   will be pruned according to normal expiry rules with the next git
	   gc invocation. See git-gc(1).

       -d
	   After packing, if the newly created packs make some existing packs
	   redundant, remove the redundant packs. Also run git prune-packed to
	   remove redundant loose object files.

       --cruft
	   Same as -a, unless -d is used. Then any unreachable objects are
	   packed into a separate cruft pack. Unreachable objects can be
	   pruned using the normal expiry rules with the next git gc
	   invocation (see git-gc(1)). Incompatible with -k.

       --cruft-expiration=<approxidate>
	   Expire unreachable objects older than <approxidate> immediately
	   instead of waiting for the next git gc invocation. Only useful with
	   --cruft -d.

       -l
	   Pass the --local option to git pack-objects. See git-pack-
	   objects(1).

       -f
	   Pass the --no-reuse-delta option to git-pack-objects, see git-pack-
	   objects(1).

       -F
	   Pass the --no-reuse-object option to git-pack-objects, see git-
	   pack-objects(1).

       -q, --quiet
	   Show no progress over the standard error stream and pass the -q
	   option to git pack-objects. See git-pack-objects(1).

       -n
	   Do not update the server information with git update-server-info.
	   This option skips updating local catalog files needed to publish
	   this repository (or a direct copy of it) over HTTP or FTP. See git-
	   update-server-info(1).

       --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. The maximum
	   depth is 4095.

       --threads=<n>
	   This option is passed through to git pack-objects.

       --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. Note
	   that the actual memory usage will be the limit multiplied by the
	   number of threads used by git-pack-objects(1).

       --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. Note that
	   this option may result in a larger and slower repository; see the
	   discussion in pack.packSizeLimit.

       -b, --write-bitmap-index
	   Write a reachability bitmap index as part of the repack. This only
	   makes sense when used with -a, -A or -m, as the bitmaps must be
	   able to refer to all reachable objects. This option overrides the
	   setting of repack.writeBitmaps. This option has no effect if
	   multiple packfiles are created, unless writing a MIDX (in which
	   case a multi-pack bitmap is created).

       --pack-kept-objects
	   Include objects in .keep files when repacking. Note that we still
	   do not delete .keep packs after pack-objects finishes. This means
	   that we may duplicate objects, but this makes the option safe to
	   use when there are concurrent pushes or fetches. This option is
	   generally only useful if you are writing bitmaps with -b or
	   repack.writeBitmaps, as it ensures that the bitmapped packfile has
	   the necessary objects.

       --keep-pack=<pack-name>
	   Exclude the given pack from repacking. This is the equivalent of
	   having .keep file on the pack.  <pack-name> is the pack file name
	   without leading directory (e.g.  pack-123.pack). The option could
	   be specified multiple times to keep multiple packs.

       --unpack-unreachable=<when>
	   When loosening unreachable objects, do not bother loosening any
	   objects older than <when>. This can be used to optimize out the
	   write of any objects that would be immediately pruned by a
	   follow-up git prune.

       -k, --keep-unreachable
	   When used with -ad, any unreachable objects from existing packs
	   will be appended to the end of the packfile instead of being
	   removed. In addition, any unreachable loose objects will be packed
	   (and their loose counterparts removed).

       -i, --delta-islands
	   Pass the --delta-islands option to git-pack-objects, see git-pack-
	   objects(1).

       -g=<factor>, --geometric=<factor>
	   Arrange resulting pack structure so that each successive pack
	   contains at least <factor> times the number of objects as the
	   next-largest pack.

	   git repack ensures this by determining a "cut" of packfiles that
	   need to be repacked into one in order to ensure a geometric
	   progression. It picks the smallest set of packfiles such that as
	   many of the larger packfiles (by count of objects contained in that
	   pack) may be left intact.

	   Unlike other repack modes, the set of objects to pack is determined
	   uniquely by the set of packs being "rolled-up"; in other words, the
	   packs determined to need to be combined in order to restore a
	   geometric progression.

	   When --unpacked is specified, loose objects are implicitly included
	   in this "roll-up", without respect to their reachability. This is
	   subject to change in the future. This option (implying a
	   drastically different repack mode) is not guaranteed to work with
	   all other combinations of option to git repack.

	   When writing a multi-pack bitmap, git repack selects the largest
	   resulting pack as the preferred pack for object selection by the
	   MIDX (see git-multi-pack-index(1)).

       -m, --write-midx
	   Write a multi-pack index (see git-multi-pack-index(1)) containing
	   the non-redundant packs.

CONFIGURATION
       Various configuration variables affect packing, see git-config(1)
       (search for "pack" and "delta").

       By default, the command passes --delta-base-offset option to git
       pack-objects; this typically results in slightly smaller packs, but the
       generated packs are incompatible with versions of Git older than
       version 1.4.4. If you need to share your repository with such ancient
       Git versions, either directly or via the dumb http protocol, then you
       need to set the configuration variable repack.UseDeltaBaseOffset to
       "false" and repack. Access from old Git versions over the native
       protocol is unaffected by this option as the conversion is performed on
       the fly as needed in that case.

       Delta compression is not used on objects larger than the
       core.bigFileThreshold configuration variable and on files with the
       attribute delta set to false.

SEE ALSO
       git-pack-objects(1) git-prune-packed(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



Git 2.38.4			  05/16/2024			 GIT-REPACK(1)