Re: dangling commits and blobs: is this normal?

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 05:46:16PM -0400, John Dlugosz wrote:

> Immediately after doing a git gc, a git fsck --full reports dangling
> objects.  Is this normal?  What does dangling mean, if not those things
> that gc finds?

gc will leave dangling loose objects for a set expiration time
(defaulting to two weeks). This makes it safe to run even if there are
operations in progress that want those dangling objects, but haven't yet
added a reference to them (as long as said operation takes less than two
weeks).

You can also end up with dangling objects in packs. When that pack is
repacked, those objects will be loosened, and then eventually expired
under the rule mentioned above. However, I believe gc will not always
repack old packs; it will make new packs until you have a lot of packs,
and then combine them all (at least that is what "gc --auto" will do; I
don't recall whether just "git gc" follows the same rule).

-Peff