[PATCH v2 1/2] connected: negate alternate refs in deepening fetches too
- From
- Igor Wiedler <iwiedler@gitlab.com>
- Date
- Oct 14, 2026, 18:11 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20261014181134.56220-2-iwiedler@gitlab.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <20261014103507.35317-1-iwiedler@gitlab.com>
The connectivity check spawned by check_connected() uses
git rev-list --objects --stdin --not --all --quiet --alternate-refs
where 39b44ba771 (check_everything_connected: assume alternate ref tips are valid, 2019-07-01) added "--alternate-refs" so that the walk from the fetched tips stops at the refs of any alternate object store, on the assumption that the alternate is already fully connected.
That only works because "--alternate-refs" comes after "--not". cf1e7c0770 (fetch-pack: write shallow, then check connectivity, 2018-07-02) drops "--not --all" for deepening fetches, since those need to verify the whole chain up to the new shallow boundary rather than stopping at refs we already had. For such fetches we therefore run
git --shallow-file ... rev-list --objects --stdin --quiet --alternate-refs
with the alternate's refs as positive revisions, and rev-list enumerates every object reachable from them. Unless one of those refs happens to lie inside the newly fetched shallow range, where the grafts cut the walk short, that is the alternate's entire history.
This is slow for setups that attach a large alternate to a fresh repository and then do a shallow fetch of a ref that is a few commits ahead of the alternate, which is how CI runners share a clone of a big repository between jobs. With a 7M-object alternate (a bare clone of gitlab-org/gitlab), "git fetch --depth 1" transfers an empty pack in under a second and the connectivity check then takes 227s. With the alternate's refs negated the same rev-list finishes in 0.0s.
Pass "--not" in both cases, before the branch that adds "--all" for non-deepening fetches, so that "--alternate-refs" is negated for deepening fetches as well. Such a fetch still has to reach the new shallow boundary from the fetched tips without stopping at our own refs, which is what cf1e7c0770 wanted. It stops at the alternate's refs, as every other fetch already does. Move "--alternate-refs" up next to "--all" so that the arguments that bound the walk are in one place.
Add tests to t5618 that check the arguments of the rev-list child via GIT_TRACE2_EVENT for a regular and for a deepening fetch. The result of the check is the same either way for a complete alternate, so there is no behavioural difference to assert on. The difference is only in which objects are walked.
Helped-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Igor Wiedler <iwiedler@gitlab.com> --- connected.c | 6 ++++-- t/t5618-alternate-refs.sh | 12 ++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/connected.c b/connected.c index 929b9bd28d..cdf103bba5 100644 --- a/connected.c +++ b/connected.c @@ -121,15 +121,17 @@ int check_connected(oid_iterate_fn fn, void *cb_data, strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--stdin"); if (repo_has_promisor_remote(the_repository)) strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--exclude-promisor-objects"); + + /* define where the traversal should stop */ + strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--not"); if (!opt->is_deepening_fetch) { - strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--not"); if (opt->exclude_hidden_refs_section) strvec_pushf(&rev_list.args, "--exclude-hidden=%s", opt->exclude_hidden_refs_section); strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--all"); } - strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--quiet"); strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--alternate-refs"); + strvec_push(&rev_list.args, "--quiet"); if (opt->progress) strvec_pushf(&rev_list.args, "--progress=%s", _("Checking connectivity")); diff --git a/t/t5618-alternate-refs.sh b/t/t5618-alternate-refs.sh index 2fb6d549d3..4cc39af0f0 100755 --- a/t/t5618-alternate-refs.sh +++ b/t/t5618-alternate-refs.sh @@ -58,4 +58,16 @@ test_expect_success 'log --source shows .alternate marker' ' test_cmp expect actual ' +test_expect_success 'connectivity check of a fetch excludes alternate refs' ' + GIT_TRACE2_EVENT="$PWD/fetch.trace" git fetch origin && + test_subcommand_flex git rev-list --objects --stdin --not --all \ + --alternate-refs --quiet <fetch.trace +' + +test_expect_success 'connectivity check of a deepening fetch excludes alternate refs' ' + GIT_TRACE2_EVENT="$PWD/deepen.trace" git fetch --depth=1 origin one && + test_subcommand_flex git rev-list --objects --stdin --not \ + --alternate-refs --quiet <deepen.trace +' + test_done
-- 2.56.0