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