Re: Cloning marks pack for .keep

[Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi>]

Shawn O. Pearce wrote (2008-07-08 04:46 +0000):

> Jean-Luc Herren <jlh@gmx.ch> wrote:
> > After cloning a local repository with "git clone file://...", the
> > resulting repo had one big pack file, as expected, but also
> > a matching ".keep" file.  Certainly this is a bug, isn't it?  The
> > same happens if I clone git.git.  I used git 1.5.6.1 but observed
> > the same with the current master.  I bisected this behavior to
> > commit fa740529 by Shawn O. Pearce (CC'ing him).  Since this dates
> > back to 2007, I wonder if maybe only I am seeing this, but I cannot
> > think of any reason for it.
> 
> This is a known issue to me; I have been seeing this behavior myself
> since probably fa74 hit next.  I just don't clone often so I've never
> thought about it much.  ;-)

Earlier I noticed that this issue sometimes causes the repository to
grow pretty much after "git gc" because .keep packs are not touched.
This was discussed two months ago:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/81856

I tend to think that .keep packs are not good idea at least for small
and medium sized repos. For _really_ big ones I'm not sure.