Re: [PATCH] builtin/pack-objects.c: introduce `pack.extraCruftTips`

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 20, 2023, 18:12 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqzg72zalp.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <8af478ebe34539b68ffb9b353bbb1372dfca3871.1682011600.git.me@ttaylorr.com>

Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:

> This patch introduces a new configuration, `pack.extraCruftTips` which
> allows the caller to specify a program (or set of programs) whose output
> is treated as a set of objects to treat as "kept", even if they are
> unreachable and have aged out of the retention period.

I can see why this would make the implementation simpler, simply because no existing codepaths that determines if an object is still live knows about such a program hence all the codepaths by default keep considering them expungeable crufts except for a very limited set of codepaths that will pay attention to the program. But it makes me wonder if it would make the life of end-users simpler if we reserve a special ref hierarchy, say "refs/crufts/*", than having to write a program for doing something like this.

Thanks.