Re: [RFC] Alternates and broken repos: A pack and prune scheme to avoid them

From: Johannes Sixt <johannes.sixt@telecom.at>
Date: Nov 18, 2007, 20:01 UTC
Message-ID: <200711182101.53936.johannes.sixt@telecom.at>
In-Reply-To: <7v3av3wg7h.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Sunday 18 November 2007 19:39, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Johannes Sixt <johannes.sixt@telecom.at> writes:
> > Then the strategy of garbage collection can be arranged in the following
> > way:
> >
> > - Repack by starting at the "most complete" repo and work towards the
> > "most borrowing" ones. During this phase "attic" packs are created.
> > Borrowing repos get a chance to salvage objects before the alternates
> > prune them away.
> >
> > - Prune by starting at the "most borrowing" repo and work towards the
> > "most complete" ones. During this phase the "attic" packs are cleaned up.
> >
> > What do you think? Is this a way for a solution?
>
> I would imagine that would work as long as it can be controlled
> when all the involved repositories are repacked and pruned, such
> as on repo.or.cz case (but on the other hand it is not really
> controlled well there and that is the reason you wrote the
> message X-<).

Well, I think in many situations pack and prune can be controlled. To be precise, if alternates are used pack and prune *must* be controlled. Currently, the control is very simple: "don't prune" (and I don't recall ATM what you must not do when you repack).

Anyway, judging from the responses so far it seems that people can live with "don't prune" (or not using alternates) ;-) Repositories getting broken this way isn't exactly my itch, either, so... I spelled out a possible solution if someone wants to pick up the topic.

-- Hannes