Re: Corruption: empty refs/heads in otherwise filled repo: cannot clone?

["Björn Steinbrink" <B.Steinbrink@gmx.de>]

On 2008.06.30 13:26:10 +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> Jan Wielemaker wrote:
> > On Monday 30 June 2008 12:10, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> >> Jan Wielemaker <J.Wielemaker@uva.nl> writes:
> >>>
> >>> I'm a bit puzzled. I have a bare repository, somehow without any files
> >>> in refs/heads.
> >>
> >> Do you have .git/packed-refs file?
> > 
> > Its a bare repo, so I'll forget the .git.  Yes, I have that file and
> > it contains nice references,  I checked a few by hand, and they have
> > the same SHA1 as the files I copied.
> 
> That is where the refs are instead of being in individual files under
> refs/ - those are so called "packed refs".
> 
>   When a ref is  missing from  the traditional $GIT_DIR/refs hierarchy,
>   it is looked up in $GIT_DIR/packed-refs and used if found.
> 
> I'm not sure why branches are also packed, because git used to pack
> only tags and refs which were packed already.
> 
> >> How do you have gc.packrefs set ("git config --get gc.packrefs")?
> > 
> > This gives no output, so I guess the answer is 'no'.
> 
> In git-config(1) you can find the following:
> 
>   gc.packrefs::
>         `git gc` does not run `git pack-refs` in a bare repository by
>         default so that older dumb-transport clients can still fetch
>         from the repository.  Setting this to `true` lets `git
>         gc` to run `git pack-refs`.  Setting this to `false` tells
>         `git gc` never to run `git pack-refs`. The default setting is
>         `notbare`. Enable it only when you know you do not have to
>         support such clients.  The default setting will change to `true`
>         at some stage, and setting this to `false` will continue to
>         prevent `git pack-refs` from being run from `git gc`.
> 
> Unless something changed (and git Documentation was not updated) git
> should not pack refs by default.

I had a quick glance over the log for builtin-gc.c, and that changed
last year in:

56752391 Make "git gc" pack all refs by default

Björn - who lacks time to provide a doc update patch :-(