Re: [PATCH WIP 0/4] Special code path for large blobs

From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>
Date: May 28, 2009, 18:03 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0905281349320.3906@xanadu.home>
In-Reply-To: <1243488550-15357-1-git-send-email-pclouds@gmail.com>

On Thu, 28 May 2009, Nguy�n Th�i Ng�c Duy wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Thread "Problem with large files on different OSes" reminds me this.
> This series is in my repository for quite some time. It addresses
> adding/checking out large blobs as long as:
> 
>  - no conversion will be done
>  - blobs are loose (in checkout case)
> 
> Together with a patch that prevents large blobs from being packed
> (something like Dana How sent long ago), and a modification of "lazy
> clone/remote alternatives" patch to avoid packing large blobs again
> for sending over network, I think it should make git possible for
> large files.
> 
> Just something to play.

I think this is a good start.

However, like I said previously, I'd encapsulate large blobs in a pack right away instead of storing them as loose objects. The reason is that you can effortlessly repack/fetch/push them afterwards by simply triggering the pack data reuse code path for them. Extracting large and undeltified blobs from a pack is just as easy as from a loose object.

To accomplish that, you only need to copy write_pack_file() from builtin-pack-objects.c and strip it to the bone with only one object to write.

Nicolas