[OT] Using object store for other (java) applications

Hi,

what do you think: Is it possible to use the object store (hash based and optimized storage) within another Java application? Maybe the JGIT implementation contains anything that could be used? I need to store many different images within a repository, so I would like to try to reuse the Git storage.

Could anyone give me a hint whether it is possible (and a good idea) and which classes I should take a look at first.

Thanks,

Johannes

Johannes Schneider <mailings@cedarsoft.com> wrote:

Sure. So long as your storage model fits well onto the Git object store. If all you want is a content keyed lookup, Git is possibly overkill, but you could use it.

Yes. Use the Repository class to access the local repository, use an ObjectWriter to store blobs and compute their names. Use the openBlob method on Repository to obtain an ObjectLoader for a blob content you previously had stored.

ObjectWriter stores everything as loose files. Eventually, you may want to pack them. Use a PackWriter. JGit lacks `git prune-packed` support, but this probably could be coded up in Java and contributed to JGit with fairly little effort.

If you store data, you probably should connect the blobs into a tree and into commits, so that the blobs are considered reachable and can't be cleaned out by `git gc`.

But, if you only ever use your own application against the repository, and use JGit to manage it, you would never be invoking GC and thus would never need to worry about it.