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-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-fast-import.txt83
1 files changed, 58 insertions, 25 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt
index 3d3d219e58..7baf9e47b5 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ git-fast-import - Backend for fast Git data importers
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
-frontend | 'git fast-import' [options]
+frontend | 'git fast-import' [<options>]
DESCRIPTION
-----------
@@ -40,9 +40,10 @@ OPTIONS
not contain the old commit).
--quiet::
- Disable all non-fatal output, making fast-import silent when it
- is successful. This option disables the output shown by
- --stats.
+ Disable the output shown by --stats, making fast-import usually
+ be silent when it is successful. However, if the import stream
+ has directives intended to show user output (e.g. `progress`
+ directives), the corresponding messages will still be shown.
--stats::
Display some basic statistics about the objects fast-import has
@@ -139,7 +140,7 @@ Performance and Compression Tuning
fastimport.unpackLimit::
See linkgit:git-config[1]
-Performance
+PERFORMANCE
-----------
The design of fast-import allows it to import large projects in a minimum
amount of memory usage and processing time. Assuming the frontend
@@ -155,7 +156,7 @@ faster if the source data is stored on a different drive than the
destination Git repository (due to less IO contention).
-Development Cost
+DEVELOPMENT COST
----------------
A typical frontend for fast-import tends to weigh in at approximately 200
lines of Perl/Python/Ruby code. Most developers have been able to
@@ -165,7 +166,7 @@ an ideal situation, given that most conversion tools are throw-away
(use once, and never look back).
-Parallel Operation
+PARALLEL OPERATION
------------------
Like 'git push' or 'git fetch', imports handled by fast-import are safe to
run alongside parallel `git repack -a -d` or `git gc` invocations,
@@ -186,7 +187,7 @@ this only be used on an otherwise quiet repository. Using --force
is not necessary for an initial import into an empty repository.
-Technical Discussion
+TECHNICAL DISCUSSION
--------------------
fast-import tracks a set of branches in memory. Any branch can be created
or modified at any point during the import process by sending a
@@ -204,7 +205,7 @@ directory also allows fast-import to run very quickly, as it does not
need to perform any costly file update operations when switching
between branches.
-Input Format
+INPUT FORMAT
------------
With the exception of raw file data (which Git does not interpret)
the fast-import input format is text (ASCII) based. This text based
@@ -384,8 +385,10 @@ change to the project.
....
'commit' SP <ref> LF
mark?
+ original-oid?
('author' (SP <name>)? SP LT <email> GT SP <when> LF)?
'committer' (SP <name>)? SP LT <email> GT SP <when> LF
+ ('encoding' SP <encoding>)?
data
('from' SP <commit-ish> LF)?
('merge' SP <commit-ish> LF)?
@@ -420,7 +423,12 @@ However it is recommended that a `filedeleteall` command precede
all `filemodify`, `filecopy`, `filerename` and `notemodify` commands in
the same commit, as `filedeleteall` wipes the branch clean (see below).
-The `LF` after the command is optional (it used to be required).
+The `LF` after the command is optional (it used to be required). Note
+that for reasons of backward compatibility, if the commit ends with a
+`data` command (i.e. it has has no `from`, `merge`, `filemodify`,
+`filedelete`, `filecopy`, `filerename`, `filedeleteall` or
+`notemodify` commands) then two `LF` commands may appear at the end of
+the command instead of just one.
`author`
^^^^^^^^
@@ -448,6 +456,12 @@ that was selected by the --date-format=<fmt> command-line option.
See ``Date Formats'' above for the set of supported formats, and
their syntax.
+`encoding`
+^^^^^^^^^^
+The optional `encoding` command indicates the encoding of the commit
+message. Most commits are UTF-8 and the encoding is omitted, but this
+allows importing commit messages into git without first reencoding them.
+
`from`
^^^^^^
The `from` command is used to specify the commit to initialize
@@ -740,6 +754,19 @@ New marks are created automatically. Existing marks can be moved
to another object simply by reusing the same `<idnum>` in another
`mark` command.
+`original-oid`
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+Provides the name of the object in the original source control system.
+fast-import will simply ignore this directive, but filter processes
+which operate on and modify the stream before feeding to fast-import
+may have uses for this information
+
+....
+ 'original-oid' SP <object-identifier> LF
+....
+
+where `<object-identifer>` is any string not containing LF.
+
`tag`
~~~~~
Creates an annotated tag referring to a specific commit. To create
@@ -748,6 +775,7 @@ lightweight (non-annotated) tags see the `reset` command below.
....
'tag' SP <name> LF
'from' SP <commit-ish> LF
+ original-oid?
'tagger' (SP <name>)? SP LT <email> GT SP <when> LF
data
....
@@ -822,6 +850,7 @@ assigned mark.
....
'blob' LF
mark?
+ original-oid?
data
....
@@ -949,10 +978,6 @@ might want to refer to in their commit messages.
'get-mark' SP ':' <idnum> LF
....
-This command can be used anywhere in the stream that comments are
-accepted. In particular, the `get-mark` command can be used in the
-middle of a commit but not in the middle of a `data` command.
-
See ``Responses To Commands'' below for details about how to read
this output safely.
@@ -979,9 +1004,10 @@ Output uses the same format as `git cat-file --batch`:
<contents> LF
====
-This command can be used anywhere in the stream that comments are
-accepted. In particular, the `cat-blob` command can be used in the
-middle of a commit but not in the middle of a `data` command.
+This command can be used where a `filemodify` directive can appear,
+allowing it to be used in the middle of a commit. For a `filemodify`
+using an inline directive, it can also appear right before the `data`
+directive.
See ``Responses To Commands'' below for details about how to read
this output safely.
@@ -994,8 +1020,8 @@ printing a blob from the active commit (with `cat-blob`) or copying a
blob or tree from a previous commit for use in the current one (with
`filemodify`).
-The `ls` command can be used anywhere in the stream that comments are
-accepted, including the middle of a commit.
+The `ls` command can also be used where a `filemodify` directive can
+appear, allowing it to be used in the middle of a commit.
Reading from the active commit::
This form can only be used in the middle of a `commit`.
@@ -1131,7 +1157,7 @@ If the `--done` command-line option or `feature done` command is
in use, the `done` command is mandatory and marks the end of the
stream.
-Responses To Commands
+RESPONSES TO COMMANDS
---------------------
New objects written by fast-import are not available immediately.
Most fast-import commands have no visible effect until the next
@@ -1160,7 +1186,7 @@ To avoid deadlock, such frontends must completely consume any
pending output from `progress`, `ls`, `get-mark`, and `cat-blob` before
performing writes to fast-import that might block.
-Crash Reports
+CRASH REPORTS
-------------
If fast-import is supplied invalid input it will terminate with a
non-zero exit status and create a crash report in the top level of
@@ -1247,7 +1273,7 @@ An example crash:
END OF CRASH REPORT
====
-Tips and Tricks
+TIPS AND TRICKS
---------------
The following tips and tricks have been collected from various
users of fast-import, and are offered here as suggestions.
@@ -1349,7 +1375,7 @@ Your users will feel better knowing how much of the data stream
has been processed.
-Packfile Optimization
+PACKFILE OPTIMIZATION
---------------------
When packing a blob fast-import always attempts to deltify against the last
blob written. Unless specifically arranged for by the frontend,
@@ -1379,8 +1405,15 @@ deltas are suboptimal (see above) then also adding the `-f` option
to force recomputation of all deltas can significantly reduce the
final packfile size (30-50% smaller can be quite typical).
+Instead of running `git repack` you can also run `git gc
+--aggressive`, which will also optimize other things after an import
+(e.g. pack loose refs). As noted in the "AGGRESSIVE" section in
+linkgit:git-gc[1] the `--aggressive` option will find new deltas with
+the `-f` option to linkgit:git-repack[1]. For the reasons elaborated
+on above using `--aggressive` after a fast-import is one of the few
+cases where it's known to be worthwhile.
-Memory Utilization
+MEMORY UTILIZATION
------------------
There are a number of factors which affect how much memory fast-import
requires to perform an import. Like critical sections of core
@@ -1458,7 +1491,7 @@ and lazy loading of subtrees, allows fast-import to efficiently import
projects with 2,000+ branches and 45,114+ files in a very limited
memory footprint (less than 2.7 MiB per active branch).
-Signals
+SIGNALS
-------
Sending *SIGUSR1* to the 'git fast-import' process ends the current
packfile early, simulating a `checkpoint` command. The impatient