Re: "git gc" doesn't seem to remove loose objects any more

On 2008.12.15 14:38:56 +0100, Mikael Magnusson wrote:

2008/12/15 Bruce Stephens [off-list ref]:

quoted

I couldn't see a test for this, but perhaps I'm just missing it?

   brs% git count-objects
   161 objects, 1552 kilobytes
   brs% git gc
   Counting objects: 80621, done.
   Compressing objects: 100% (22372/22372), done.
   Writing objects: 100% (80621/80621), done.
   Total 80621 (delta 57160), reused 80305 (delta 56884)
   brs% git count-objects
   207 objects, 2048 kilobytes


And I see lots of directories under .git/objects which confirms
things.

I don't think I've changed any relevant configuration.

This is with 8befc50c49e8a271fd3cd7fb34258fe88d1dfcad (also whatever
version I used before, erm, probably
de0db422782ddaf7754ac5b03fdc6dc5de1a9ae4), and possibly earlier
versions---I've just started noticing now that the number of loose
objects has started causing git gui to complain.

(Hmm, I note that git gui reports a larger number of loose objects
than git count-objects.  Ah, OK, it really is just an approximation,
so no surprise.)

IIRC git gc only removes loose objects older than two weeks, if you
really want to remove them now, run git prune. But make sure no other
git process can be active when you run it, or it could possibly step
on something.

To clarify that a bit more: git gc keeps unreachable objects unpacked,
so that git prune can drop them. And git gc invokes git prune so that
only unreachable objects older than 2 weeks are dropped.

Björn