From Linux Man Pages
git-pack-objects - Create a packed archive of objects
SYNOPSIS
git-pack-objects [-q] [--no-reuse-delta] [--non-empty]
[--local] [--incremental] [--window=N] [--depth=N]
[--revs [--unpacked | --all]*] [--stdout | base-name] < 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 set of objects between two repositories, and also is an archival
format which is efficient to access. The packed archive format (.pack) is designed to be unpackable without
having anything else, but for random access, accompanied with the pack index file (.idx).
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.
Placing both in the pack/ subdirectory of $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY (or any of the directories on
$GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES) enables git to read from such an archive.
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.
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>-<SHA1>.{pack,idx} files. <SHA1> is a hash
of the sorted object names to make the resulting filename based on the pack content, and 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(1) with --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 $GIT_DIR/refs are specified to be included.
--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 both --window and --depth is 10.
--incremental
This flag causes an object already in a pack ignored even if it appears in the standard input.
--local
This flag is similar to --incremental; instead of ignoring all packed objects, it only ignores objects that
are packed and not in the local object store (i.e. borrowed from an alternate).
--non-empty
Only create a packed archive if it would contain at least one object.
-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.
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano
RELATED
git-rev-list(1) git-repack(1) git-prune-packed(1)
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite
CATEGORY