Re: git-index-pack really does suck..

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> Side note: with "alternates" files, you might well *always* have the 
> objects. If you do
>
> 	git clone -l -s ...
>
> to create various branches, and then pull between them, you'll actually 
> end up in the situation that you'll always find the objects and get back 
> to the really expensive case..

Ah, that's true.  If you "git clone -l -s A B", create new
objects in A and pull from B, the transfer would not exclude
new objects as they are not visible from B's refs.

In that scenario, the keep-pack behaviour is already worse than
the unpack-objects behaviour.  The former creates a packfile
that duplicates objects that are in A while the latter, although
expensive, ends up doing nothing.

I wonder if we can have a backdoor to avoid any object transfer
in such a case to begin with...