NAME

       git-index-pack - Build pack index file for an existing packed archive

SYNOPSIS

       git index-pack [-v] [-o <index-file>] <pack-file>
       git index-pack --stdin [--fix-thin] [--keep] [-v] [-o <index-file>]
                        [<pack-file>]

DESCRIPTION

       Reads a packed archive (.pack) from the specified file, and builds a pack index file
       (.idx) for it. The packed archive together with the pack index can then be placed in the
       objects/pack/ directory of a Git repository.

OPTIONS

       -v
           Be verbose about what is going on, including progress status.

       -o <index-file>
           Write the generated pack index into the specified file. Without this option the name
           of pack index file is constructed from the name of packed archive file by replacing
           .pack with .idx (and the program fails if the name of packed archive does not end with
           .pack).

       --stdin
           When this flag is provided, the pack is read from stdin instead and a copy is then
           written to <pack-file>. If <pack-file> is not specified, the pack is written to
           objects/pack/ directory of the current Git repository with a default name determined
           from the pack content. If <pack-file> is not specified consider using --keep to
           prevent a race condition between this process and git repack.

       --fix-thin
           Fix a "thin" pack produced by git pack-objects --thin (see git-pack-objects(1) for
           details) by adding the excluded objects the deltified objects are based on to the
           pack. This option only makes sense in conjunction with --stdin.

       --keep
           Before moving the index into its final destination create an empty .keep file for the
           associated pack file. This option is usually necessary with --stdin to prevent a
           simultaneous git repack process from deleting the newly constructed pack and index
           before refs can be updated to use objects contained in the pack.

       --keep=<msg>
           Like --keep create a .keep file before moving the index into its final destination,
           but rather than creating an empty file place <msg> followed by an LF into the .keep
           file. The <msg> message can later be searched for within all .keep files to locate any
           which have outlived their usefulness.

       --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.

       --strict
           Die, if the pack contains broken objects or links.

       --check-self-contained-and-connected
           Die if the pack contains broken links. For internal use only.

       --threads=<n>
           Specifies the number of threads to spawn when resolving deltas. This requires that
           index-pack 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 use maximum 3
           threads.

NOTE

       Once the index has been created, the list of object names is sorted and the SHA-1 hash of
       that list is printed to stdout. If --stdin was also used then this is prefixed by either
       "pack\t", or "keep\t" if a new .keep file was successfully created. This is useful to
       remove a .keep file used as a lock to prevent the race with git repack mentioned above.

GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite