1 files changed, 169 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt
index 8e5bf60be3..cab5bdd2ff 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt
@@ -36,6 +36,98 @@ Git pack format
 
   - The trailer records 20-byte SHA-1 checksum of all of the above.
 
+=== Object types
+
+Valid object types are:
+
+- OBJ_COMMIT (1)
+- OBJ_TREE (2)
+- OBJ_BLOB (3)
+- OBJ_TAG (4)
+- OBJ_OFS_DELTA (6)
+- OBJ_REF_DELTA (7)
+
+Type 5 is reserved for future expansion. Type 0 is invalid.
+
+=== Deltified representation
+
+Conceptually there are only four object types: commit, tree, tag and
+blob. However to save space, an object could be stored as a "delta" of
+another "base" object. These representations are assigned new types
+ofs-delta and ref-delta, which is only valid in a pack file.
+
+Both ofs-delta and ref-delta store the "delta" to be applied to
+another object (called 'base object') to reconstruct the object. The
+difference between them is, ref-delta directly encodes 20-byte base
+object name. If the base object is in the same pack, ofs-delta encodes
+the offset of the base object in the pack instead.
+
+The base object could also be deltified if it's in the same pack.
+Ref-delta can also refer to an object outside the pack (i.e. the
+so-called "thin pack"). When stored on disk however, the pack should
+be self contained to avoid cyclic dependency.
+
+The delta data is a sequence of instructions to reconstruct an object
+from the base object. If the base object is deltified, it must be
+converted to canonical form first. Each instruction appends more and
+more data to the target object until it's complete. There are two
+supported instructions so far: one for copy a byte range from the
+source object and one for inserting new data embedded in the
+instruction itself.
+
+Each instruction has variable length. Instruction type is determined
+by the seventh bit of the first octet. The following diagrams follow
+the convention in RFC 1951 (Deflate compressed data format).
+
+==== Instruction to copy from base object
+
+  +----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
+  | 1xxxxxxx | offset1 | offset2 | offset3 | offset4 | size1 | size2 | size3 |
+  +----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
+
+This is the instruction format to copy a byte range from the source
+object. It encodes the offset to copy from and the number of bytes to
+copy. Offset and size are in little-endian order.
+
+All offset and size bytes are optional. This is to reduce the
+instruction size when encoding small offsets or sizes. The first seven
+bits in the first octet determines which of the next seven octets is
+present. If bit zero is set, offset1 is present. If bit one is set
+offset2 is present and so on.
+
+Note that a more compact instruction does not change offset and size
+encoding. For example, if only offset2 is omitted like below, offset3
+still contains bits 16-23. It does not become offset2 and contains
+bits 8-15 even if it's right next to offset1.
+
+  +----------+---------+---------+
+  | 10000101 | offset1 | offset3 |
+  +----------+---------+---------+
+
+In its most compact form, this instruction only takes up one byte
+(0x80) with both offset and size omitted, which will have default
+values zero. There is another exception: size zero is automatically
+converted to 0x10000.
+
+==== Instruction to add new data
+
+  +----------+============+
+  | 0xxxxxxx |    data    |
+  +----------+============+
+
+This is the instruction to construct target object without the base
+object. The following data is appended to the target object. The first
+seven bits of the first octet determines the size of data in
+bytes. The size must be non-zero.
+
+==== Reserved instruction
+
+  +----------+============
+  | 00000000 |
+  +----------+============
+
+This is the instruction reserved for future expansion.
+
 == Original (version 1) pack-*.idx files have the following format:
 
   - The header consists of 256 4-byte network byte order
@@ -160,3 +252,80 @@ Pack file entry: <+
     corresponding packfile.
 
     20-byte SHA-1-checksum of all of the above.
+
+== multi-pack-index (MIDX) files have the following format:
+
+The multi-pack-index files refer to multiple pack-files and loose objects.
+
+In order to allow extensions that add extra data to the MIDX, we organize
+the body into "chunks" and provide a lookup table at the beginning of the
+body. The header includes certain length values, such as the number of packs,
+the number of base MIDX files, hash lengths and types.
+
+All 4-byte numbers are in network order.
+
+HEADER:
+
+	4-byte signature:
+	    The signature is: {'M', 'I', 'D', 'X'}
+
+	1-byte version number:
+	    Git only writes or recognizes version 1.
+
+	1-byte Object Id Version
+	    Git only writes or recognizes version 1 (SHA1).
+
+	1-byte number of "chunks"
+
+	1-byte number of base multi-pack-index files:
+	    This value is currently always zero.
+
+	4-byte number of pack files
+
+CHUNK LOOKUP:
+
+	(C + 1) * 12 bytes providing the chunk offsets:
+	    First 4 bytes describe chunk id. Value 0 is a terminating label.
+	    Other 8 bytes provide offset in current file for chunk to start.
+	    (Chunks are provided in file-order, so you can infer the length
+	    using the next chunk position if necessary.)
+
+	The remaining data in the body is described one chunk at a time, and
+	these chunks may be given in any order. Chunks are required unless
+	otherwise specified.
+
+CHUNK DATA:
+
+	Packfile Names (ID: {'P', 'N', 'A', 'M'})
+	    Stores the packfile names as concatenated, null-terminated strings.
+	    Packfiles must be listed in lexicographic order for fast lookups by
+	    name. This is the only chunk not guaranteed to be a multiple of four
+	    bytes in length, so should be the last chunk for alignment reasons.
+
+	OID Fanout (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'F'})
+	    The ith entry, F[i], stores the number of OIDs with first
+	    byte at most i. Thus F[255] stores the total
+	    number of objects.
+
+	OID Lookup (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'L'})
+	    The OIDs for all objects in the MIDX are stored in lexicographic
+	    order in this chunk.
+
+	Object Offsets (ID: {'O', 'O', 'F', 'F'})
+	    Stores two 4-byte values for every object.
+	    1: The pack-int-id for the pack storing this object.
+	    2: The offset within the pack.
+		If all offsets are less than 2^31, then the large offset chunk
+		will not exist and offsets are stored as in IDX v1.
+		If there is at least one offset value larger than 2^32-1, then
+		the large offset chunk must exist. If the large offset chunk
+		exists and the 31st bit is on, then removing that bit reveals
+		the row in the large offsets containing the 8-byte offset of
+		this object.
+
+	[Optional] Object Large Offsets (ID: {'L', 'O', 'F', 'F'})
+	    8-byte offsets into large packfiles.
+
+TRAILER:
+
+	20-byte SHA1-checksum of the above contents.