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>-<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.

       --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’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’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