threads / discuss / 53181

Git clone question

Subject: Git clone question

## tl;dr

3 messages between Apr 7, 2020 and Apr 8, 2020.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Sankar P· Apr 7, 2020, 18:22 UTC · lore
Hi
I am trying to understand about git clone.

From the few git videos that I have watched and using git, I understand that git stores the difference between each version, as an object, with the sha of the diff as the way to address the object.

However, what is not clear to me is, how does `git clone` then work ? If a repository has a thousand commits, do we download all the thousand objects to the client system and then apply them one on top of the other ? I am sure that must not be the case because the `git clone` operation completes so fast, and I doubt if my disks are that fast.

However, when I do a `git clone` I could see the history until the first commit.

I can also partially ignore the history and clone only the last N commits history too. So my question is, how does `git clone` work under the hood and how is it so fast ? Does the git server save the expanded git tree (with all the git patches applied) and we just transfer them when we do the `git clone` ?

Are there any good talks / papers / books on the internals of the working of git ?

Thanks.
-- 
Sankar P
http://psankar.blogspot.com
Bryan Turner· Apr 7, 2020, 20:01 UTC · re: Sankar P · lore

Re: Git clone question

On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 11:21 AM Sankar P <sankar.curiosity@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 8 quoted lines
>
> Hi
>
> I am trying to understand about git clone.
>
> From the few git videos that I have watched and using git, I
> understand that git stores the difference between each version, as an
> object, with the sha of the diff as the way to address the object.

This is not correct. Git stores full objects, not diffs/patches, and the SHA is of the full object contents, not the changes to those contents versus the previous contents.

Objects are stored compressed (using libz). In addition to compression, when objects are packed Git can use a technique called "delta compression" to allow it to build one object in terms of another. This is something like a diff/patch, but it's not the delta that gets hashed; it's the full object (before and after).

Show 7 quoted lines
>
> However, what is not clear to me is, how does `git clone` then work ?
> If a repository has a thousand commits, do we download all the
> thousand objects to the client system and then apply them one on top
> of the other ? I am sure that must not be the case because the `git
> clone` operation completes so fast, and I doubt if my disks are that
> fast.

Between libz compression and delta compression the pack file containing all of those objects tends to be substantially smaller than the full set of objects.

>
> However, when I do a `git clone` I could see the history until the first commit.

Yes, when cloning by default you receive all the objects in the history of the repository and, as you note below, you can also perform a "shallow clone" to limit what you get to some specific depth. Newer versions of Git are also working on introducing the concept of a "partial clone", where some types of objects (large files, for example) are not downloaded up front and are instead downloaded on first access. This isn't yet widely supported, though.

Show 6 quoted lines
>
> I can also partially ignore the history and clone only the last N
> commits history too. So my question is, how does `git clone` work
> under the hood and how is it so fast ? Does the git server save the
> expanded git tree (with all the git patches applied) and we just
> transfer them when we do the `git clone` ?

As noted above, there's no "patching" going on. The server does store a packfile, though, and depending on how recently the pack was created it can reuse substantial portions of that pack when creating a pack to serve the clone.

>
> Are there any good talks / papers / books on the internals of the
> working of git ?
Have you checked https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 ?
Show 7 quoted lines
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> --
> Sankar P
> http://psankar.blogspot.com
Sankar P· Apr 8, 2020, 02:27 UTC · re: Bryan Turner · lore

Re: Git clone question

Show 5 quoted lines
> Objects are stored compressed (using libz). In addition to
> compression, when objects are packed Git can use a technique called
> "delta compression" to allow it to build one object in terms of
> another. This is something like a diff/patch, but it's not the delta
> that gets hashed; it's the full object (before and after).
oh okay.
>
> Between libz compression and delta compression the pack file
> containing all of those objects tends to be substantially smaller than
> the full set of objects.
Fascinating.
> As noted above, there's no "patching" going on. The server does store
> a packfile, though, and depending on how recently the pack was created
> it can reuse substantial portions of that pack when creating a pack to
> serve the clone.
> Have you checked https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 ?

Thanks. I will check this out. The 10th chapter seems related. I earlier came across this but thought it was a user guide, based on the first few chapters and did not reach here.

If there are any other blog posts, talks, etc. about the delta compression, packfile etc. too, please let me know. Thanks.

-- 
Sankar P
http://psankar.blogspot.com

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