From: Juan Zanos <juan_zanos@talkhouse.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:35:14 GMT
Subject: Possible git bug when using filter-branch to remove large binaries
Message-ID: <34854909-55F5-4869-A7A6-0E179F2F7A44@talkhouse.com>

Hi Vger,

I'm trying to remove a directory of large binaries from a git  
repository    There is a directory of 85M in a git repository of  
92M.  So the binaries are relatively massive and should never have  
been checked in in the first place.  I've tried to use filter-branch  
to permanently remove those binaries.  The directory successfully  
vanishes. However, the repository + working directory only goes from  
216M down to 133M.   That means the binaries were only removed from  
the working directory.   The repository remains bloated.   I've tried  
a handful of magic incantations using commands such as gc, prune,  
reflog expire --all, etc..  None of these have  worked.   In fact,  
after cloning the 133M (repo + working) and running gc the directory  
actually increased in size from 133M to 290M!

I'm not really sure I understand what's  going on here.   It  sounds  
like the growth to 290M  is a  bug.  If so I'm  happy to provide the  
repo as a test case as well as the exact commands I use.  On the  
other hand, I'm finding that the git API is  complex enough that I   
could easily be doing something wrong or missing some command.   In  
that case is there a simple set of commands I could use to remove a  
directory of really large binaries that never should  have been  
checked in in the first place and reclaim the space ?  I've checked  
pretty thoroughly on Google to find people who have successfully done  
this, but it seems mostly people have failed to actually reclaim space.

Cheers,
Juan