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-rw-r--r--Documentation/technical/multi-pack-index.txt31
1 files changed, 12 insertions, 19 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/multi-pack-index.txt b/Documentation/technical/multi-pack-index.txt
index fb688976c4..b39c69da8c 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/multi-pack-index.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/multi-pack-index.txt
@@ -17,12 +17,12 @@ is not feasible due to storage space or excessive repack times.
The multi-pack-index (MIDX for short) stores a list of objects
and their offsets into multiple packfiles. It contains:
-- A list of packfile names.
-- A sorted list of object IDs.
-- A list of metadata for the ith object ID including:
- - A value j referring to the jth packfile.
- - An offset within the jth packfile for the object.
-- If large offsets are required, we use another list of large
+* A list of packfile names.
+* A sorted list of object IDs.
+* A list of metadata for the ith object ID including:
+** A value j referring to the jth packfile.
+** An offset within the jth packfile for the object.
+* If large offsets are required, we use another list of large
offsets similar to version 2 pack-indexes.
Thus, we can provide O(log N) lookup time for any number
@@ -36,7 +36,9 @@ Design Details
directory of an alternate. It refers only to packfiles in that
same directory.
-- The core.multiPackIndex config setting must be on to consume MIDX files.
+- The core.multiPackIndex config setting must be on (which is the
+ default) to consume MIDX files. Setting it to `false` prevents
+ Git from reading a MIDX file, even if one exists.
- The file format includes parameters for the object ID hash
function, so a future change of hash algorithm does not require
@@ -71,14 +73,10 @@ Future Work
still reducing the number of binary searches required for object
lookups.
-- The reachability bitmap is currently paired directly with a single
- packfile, using the pack-order as the object order to hopefully
- compress the bitmaps well using run-length encoding. This could be
- extended to pair a reachability bitmap with a multi-pack-index. If
- the multi-pack-index is extended to store a "stable object order"
+- If the multi-pack-index is extended to store a "stable object order"
(a function Order(hash) = integer that is constant for a given hash,
- even as the multi-pack-index is updated) then a reachability bitmap
- could point to a multi-pack-index and be updated independently.
+ even as the multi-pack-index is updated) then MIDX bitmaps could be
+ updated independently of the MIDX.
- Packfiles can be marked as "special" using empty files that share
the initial name but replace ".pack" with ".keep" or ".promisor".
@@ -89,11 +87,6 @@ Future Work
helpful to organize packfiles by object type (commit, tree, blob,
etc.) and use this metadata to help that maintenance.
-- The partial clone feature records special "promisor" packs that
- may point to objects that are not stored locally, but available
- on request to a server. The multi-pack-index does not currently
- track these promisor packs.
-
Related Links
-------------
[0] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/git/issues/detail?id=6