Re: Problems getting rid of large files using git-filter-branch

Here is a summary of the solution I used. I'm a beginner in git and just summarizing what others told me and what I did. Use at your own risk!

1. Remove anything you know should be removed, e.g.:

git filter-branch --tree-filter 'find . -regex ".*toolchain\..*" -exec rm -f {} \;' HEAD

2. Expire the log:

git reflog expire --all

3. Delete stuff from .git that should be manually "verified" to be
correct. I don't actually
know how to "verify" that at this point... Use backups Luke!

rm -rf .git/refs/original # delete lines w/"refs/original" from .git/packed-refs vi .git/packed-refs # for good measure... git reflog expire --all git gc

4. Your repository is still huge. By creating a new repository and pulling from
this one, the garbage will stay in the old one...

mkdir newrep cd newrep git init git pull file:///oldrep

5. Check size of .git. If it is still too big, try figuring out which
files that are big by looking at the packs(.git/objects/pack/xxx):

$ git verify-pack -v $PACK | grep -v "^chain " | sort -n -k 4

and then for the last few lines do a

$ git rev-list --all --objects | grep $SHA1

6. Go back to #1 until done.

Your repository should now be of reasonable size...

I've found some great scripts for converting from svn/cvs, but really the above procedure is necessary to run when converting nasty old repositories...