From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: fast-import deltas
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 10:38:56 -0700
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References: <20140401102554.GA32231@glandium.org>
 <20140401114502.GA15549@sigill.intra.peff.net>
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 <20140401131512.GA19321@sigill.intra.peff.net>
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Cc: Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org>, Jeff King <peff@peff.net>,
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To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Assuming that you do have and are willing to read the original file,
> you have three possible (and one impractical) approaches:
[...]
>  - Apply the foreign changes to the original file yourself, and feed
>    the resulting content to fast-import in full, letting fast-import
>    convert into the format Git understands.

This (when importing from Subversion) was the motivation for
introducing fast-import's cat-blob command, for what it's worth.

[...]
> In short, the most practical solution would be to reconstitute a
> full object and feed that to fast-import, unless you already have
> xdelta or you can turn your foreign change into xdelta without ever
> looking at the original.

If your delta format happens to be similar enough to xdelta, then
streaming in deltas in xdelta format does sound like a neat trick.

Maybe it would be useful to provide a micro-library that creates and
validates xdelta opcodes for fast-import frontends to use.

Jonathan