diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt | 92 |
1 files changed, 92 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt index 8e5bf60be3..70a99fd142 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 |