Re: [RFC] git-fetch - repack in the background after fetching

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Jun 25, 2006, 17:29 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606251025100.3747@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0606251122260.29667@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> 
> On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> > However, the more worrisome thing about background repacking is that while 
> > it should be safe against normal users, if you have two _repacks_ at the 
> > same time, they can decide to remove each others packs. Yeah, yeah, that's 
> > pretty damn unlikely, but hey, "pretty damn unlikely" is not "impossible".
> 
> Why not introduce a lock file for repack?

You can do that. The problem is, lock-files are really hard to do right, and portably. Especially from scripts.

But _I_ think the basic issue is that it's wrong to even try to do this background repack.

Git does explicit repacking. That's just how it is. If the worry is that people forget to pack often enough, why not just have the "git pull" script _tell_ the user, something like

	if [lots of unpacked objects]; then
		echo "You've got a boatload of unpacked objects now."
		echo "Maybe you'd like to repack using"
		echo "   git repack -a -d"
		echo "Thank you for not smoking"
	fi >&2

which is educational on so many levels.

		Linus