Re: Why repository grows after "git gc"? / Purpose of *.keep files?

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Nicolas Pitre [off-list ref] wrote:

On Mon, 12 May 2008, Teemu Likonen wrote:

 > Nicolas Pitre wrote (2008-05-12 14:56 -0400):
 >
 > > On Mon, 12 May 2008, Teemu Likonen wrote:
 > >
 > > > Well, I don't really have any problems with the current behaviour;
 > > > it just feels a bit strange that, for example, Linus's kernel
 > > > repository grew about 90MB after just one update pull and gc.
 > >
 > > That looks really odd.  Sure the repo might grow a bit, but 90MB seems
 > > really excessive.  How many time did pass between the initial clone
 > > and that subsequent pull?
 >
 > As I used the kernel repo just for testing this behaviour in question
 > I did both things today. Timestamps tell that there were six hours
 > between the initial .keep pack and the new pack created by manual "git
 > gc".

 This is way too big a difference.  Something is going on.

 What git version is this? And can you send me the content of your
 .git/logs directory?


 > > > Also, dangling objects are kept forever in .keep packs (which are
 > > > created with "git clone", for example).
 > >
 > > A pack obtained via 'git clone' will never contain any dangling
 > > objects.
 >
 > I think it can contain at some later point. For example, if a user first
 > fetches all the branches but later decides to track only one branch.
 > After deleting unneeded tracking branches and expiring the reflog
 > there'll be dangling objects in the original .keep pack created with
 > "git clone".

 Sure.  But to decide to track only one branch and exclude the others
 require some higher level of git knowledge already.  At that point if
 you really care about top packing performances you certainly can deal
 with the .keep file as well.

I have had some similar problems with .keep files.  I cloned a repo I
created that had a branch that I wasn't interested in.  I deleted the
branch and then I could never get rid of the (large) number of objects
in that pack until I deleted the .keep and repacked.  I think there
should be some way of forcing git to fix this sort of thing.

It gets even worse, I had pushed up the branch I wanted to get rid of
to my hosted server and there was no way to get git to release that
disk space.  I had to have the hosting admin send me a tarball
of the repo, extract it, delete the .keep file and repack it then send
it back to him.  I was fortunate enough to have a service that would
let me do that.

Thanks,
Govind.