Re: [PATCH] Add 'git fast-export', the sister of 'git fast-import'

From: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: Nov 27, 2007, 02:08 UTC
Message-ID: <20071127020842.GN14735@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0711252236350.4725@wbgn129.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

> This program dumps (parts of) a git repository in the format that
> fast-import understands.

...

Show 7 quoted lines

> +-------------------------------------------------------------------
> +$ git fast-export --all | (cd /empty/repository && git fast-import)
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------
> +
> +This will export the whole repository and import it into the existing
> +empty repository.  Except for reencoding commits that are not in
> +UTF-8, it would be a one-to-one mirror.

WTF?

Why are you reencoding the commits on output in fast-export? Why aren't you dumping them raw to the stream? fast-import takes them raw. Oh, it doesn't have a way to set the encoding header. DOH.

I think this should be prefixed by fast-import patch to teach it something like "encoding N" as a subcommand of commit, so that you can feed data in a non UTF-8 encoding and get it to include the proper encoding header in the commit object it creates. That way a pipeline like the above really does create a duplicate repository, with the same commit SHA-1s, even if the commits weren't in UTF-8.

-- 
Shawn.