Pack bitmaps on Git for Windows

Bryan Turner· Apr 22, 2014, 07:58 UTC · lore

It looks like the documentation for bitmaps is being included in the 1.9.2 release of Git for Windows but the functionality itself is not present. For example, doc\git\html\git-config.html includes settings like these:

pack.useBitmaps

When true, git will use pack bitmaps (if available) when packing to stdout (e.g., during the server side of a fetch). Defaults to true. You should not generally need to turn this off unless you are debugging pack bitmaps.

pack.writebitmaps

When true, git will write a bitmap index when packing all objects to disk (e.g., when git repack -a is run). This index can speed up the "counting objects" phase of subsequent packs created for clones and fetches, at the cost of some disk space and extra time spent on the initial repack. Defaults to false.

Repacking repositories with pack.writebitmaps set to true doesn't write a bitmap, suggesting the functionality is not actually present.

This does not appear to be an issue with "normal" git, per the documentation for git config at http://www.git-scm.com/docs/git-config.

Bryan Turner

Jeff King· Apr 23, 2014, 06:32 UTC · re: Bryan Turner · lore

Re: Pack bitmaps on Git for Windows

On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 05:58:10PM +1000, Bryan Turner wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> It looks like the documentation for bitmaps is being included in the
> 1.9.2 release of Git for Windows but the functionality itself is not
> present. For example, doc\git\html\git-config.html includes settings
> like these:
> 
> pack.useBitmaps

I think this is a documentation problem with Git for Windows. The bitmap code is going into v2.0, but there should be nothing (not even documentation) in v1.9.2. I don't know how the msysgit folks build their documentation, but I wonder if it accidentally built from current 'master' rather than v1.9.2.

You might get more information at the msysgit mailing list:

  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/msysgit

-Peff