Re: Why repository grows after "git gc"? / Purpose of *.keep files?

["Govind Salinas" <govind@sophiasuchtig.com>]

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 May 2008, Teemu Likonen wrote:
>
>  > Nicolas Pitre wrote (2008-05-12 14:56 -0400):
>  >
>  > > On Mon, 12 May 2008, Teemu Likonen wrote:
>  > >
>  > > > Well, I don't really have any problems with the current behaviour;
>  > > > it just feels a bit strange that, for example, Linus's kernel
>  > > > repository grew about 90MB after just one update pull and gc.
>  > >
>  > > That looks really odd.  Sure the repo might grow a bit, but 90MB seems
>  > > really excessive.  How many time did pass between the initial clone
>  > > and that subsequent pull?
>  >
>  > As I used the kernel repo just for testing this behaviour in question
>  > I did both things today. Timestamps tell that there were six hours
>  > between the initial .keep pack and the new pack created by manual "git
>  > gc".
>
>  This is way too big a difference.  Something is going on.
>
>  What git version is this? And can you send me the content of your
>  .git/logs directory?
>
>
>  > > > Also, dangling objects are kept forever in .keep packs (which are
>  > > > created with "git clone", for example).
>  > >
>  > > A pack obtained via 'git clone' will never contain any dangling
>  > > objects.
>  >
>  > I think it can contain at some later point. For example, if a user first
>  > fetches all the branches but later decides to track only one branch.
>  > After deleting unneeded tracking branches and expiring the reflog
>  > there'll be dangling objects in the original .keep pack created with
>  > "git clone".
>
>  Sure.  But to decide to track only one branch and exclude the others
>  require some higher level of git knowledge already.  At that point if
>  you really care about top packing performances you certainly can deal
>  with the .keep file as well.
>
>

I have had some similar problems with .keep files.  I cloned a repo I
created that had a branch that I wasn't interested in.  I deleted the
branch and then I could never get rid of the (large) number of objects
in that pack until I deleted the .keep and repacked.  I think there
should be some way of forcing git to fix this sort of thing.

It gets even worse, I had pushed up the branch I wanted to get rid of
to my hosted server and there was no way to get git to release that
disk space.  I had to have the hosting admin send me a tarball
of the repo, extract it, delete the .keep file and repack it then send
it back to him.  I was fortunate enough to have a service that would
let me do that.

Thanks,
Govind.