From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from steward.aerusso.net (steward.aerusso.net [208.87.133.46]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4D62514600C for ; Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:31:09 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=208.87.133.46 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1732897871; cv=none; b=pBUfviW/Ivyi/hzBEXriVhtimSS/RMuVPLnRNufOJhWLPV88A8eiQZAV8p7GIzloTS4fgK41ptLu4PzlCvLiClLXg15gOEufLhHO6cuYVlFvJZq7W5NVpW4jFk5uqZ8olK0aqh05P0GmxBjVVYeis0l48d1F6herCTOPzg02TN4= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1732897871; c=relaxed/simple; bh=TrkGZwav+IWCJen8qBQvF2vhDgPOUEsDGEvRCeqjn0E=; h=Message-ID:Date:MIME-Version:To:From:Subject:Content-Type; b=ACh3AMXz6cghxRykCIP4TtWdwKiKUHwZXB/aGUibYQXdjihLDXmMX/jhZ+Ktk17qapllsVkHzU1vYDDXK6yfUKeO4UyUDh2ggyiu8P50SechkN7keF2DPUrdPL0UEhqsF3azGOScBFkfR25CcGdoecy9Fb4jOFnO6qKn/yMzuBQ= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=quarantine dis=none) header.from=aerusso.net; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=aerusso.net; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=aerusso.net header.i=@aerusso.net header.b=NHCW8OXF; arc=none smtp.client-ip=208.87.133.46 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=quarantine dis=none) header.from=aerusso.net Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=aerusso.net Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=aerusso.net header.i=@aerusso.net header.b="NHCW8OXF" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=aerusso.net; s=default; t=1732897502; h=from:from:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date:message-id:message-id: to:to:cc:mime-version:mime-version:content-type:content-type: content-transfer-encoding:content-transfer-encoding; bh=mbXvfkTcazLaCf88VOCOgDB2VK3zD+W72slQW7yS0go=; b=NHCW8OXFXufuU+gWD/1ZZwlyQ5Iz8NT2DkWfEeJIWx8oZLGCnEmaiS1icpR42hVmog0fNc w6EhSFZhk6n0XPGMSySC+Xm3h0KzjfgVB+JMzno5VFqVC7QV+gCJRMDDlBzvo5n9AoI0AY /GbPd+/khiDgWJhqfFLSMpeJRXWSTUjxZCPHGeXSO77oqyuSig3mHKU90t+LhU6b3Za88Y WZ+zcU/Cxyu3h7/0mKrwZXDnbZEFv6O1XIcX9O5Lxq4utxcwvdsnL0ATpAscCoNc5w8B0L uA6/JrUlnZuBXB9Tfy/S13eIxuSLiazrH+DvUhEnw0eGIB2Md5AATjoi3IwgUg== Message-ID: Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2024 09:24:58 -0700 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Language: en-US To: git@vger.kernel.org From: Antonio Russo Subject: FEATURE/QUESTION: git fetch only commit objects, but not tree/file objects Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello everyone, Sometimes I'd like to investigate the commit history of a (large) git repository, but I don't actually (yet) care about the actual files in the repository. I know about shallow clones, but it covers kind of the opposite problem: a person may just want the files, but not the history. 1. Is there a way to download only the git commit objects, and not the corresponding tree (or file) blobs? 2. Is this a use case that anyone else cares about? I suppose a ton of code assumes it can follow any references, so implementing this as a feature means a ton of code would need to be adapted to handle the reference-not-locally-present case. Maybe it might be interesting, but would make the git code-base way too complicated? I don't really know what keywords to look for, and man git-fetch did not superficially seem to answer this, so I apologize if I wasn't able to find this feature in the documentation. Best, Antonio