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diff --git a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..cab5bdd2ff0f --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt @@ -0,0 +1,331 @@ +Git pack format +=============== + +== pack-*.pack files have the following format: + + - A header appears at the beginning and consists of the following: + + 4-byte signature: + The signature is: {'P', 'A', 'C', 'K'} + + 4-byte version number (network byte order): + Git currently accepts version number 2 or 3 but + generates version 2 only. + + 4-byte number of objects contained in the pack (network byte order) + + Observation: we cannot have more than 4G versions ;-) and + more than 4G objects in a pack. + + - The header is followed by number of object entries, each of + which looks like this: + + (undeltified representation) + n-byte type and length (3-bit type, (n-1)*7+4-bit length) + compressed data + + (deltified representation) + n-byte type and length (3-bit type, (n-1)*7+4-bit length) + 20-byte base object name if OBJ_REF_DELTA or a negative relative + offset from the delta object's position in the pack if this + is an OBJ_OFS_DELTA object + compressed delta data + + Observation: length of each object is encoded in a variable + length format and is not constrained to 32-bit or anything. + + - The trailer records 20-byte SHA-1 checksum of all of the above. + +=== Object types + +Valid object types are: + +- OBJ_COMMIT (1) +- OBJ_TREE (2) +- OBJ_BLOB (3) +- OBJ_TAG (4) +- OBJ_OFS_DELTA (6) +- OBJ_REF_DELTA (7) + +Type 5 is reserved for future expansion. Type 0 is invalid. + +=== Deltified representation + +Conceptually there are only four object types: commit, tree, tag and +blob. However to save space, an object could be stored as a "delta" of +another "base" object. These representations are assigned new types +ofs-delta and ref-delta, which is only valid in a pack file. + +Both ofs-delta and ref-delta store the "delta" to be applied to +another object (called 'base object') to reconstruct the object. The +difference between them is, ref-delta directly encodes 20-byte base +object name. If the base object is in the same pack, ofs-delta encodes +the offset of the base object in the pack instead. + +The base object could also be deltified if it's in the same pack. +Ref-delta can also refer to an object outside the pack (i.e. the +so-called "thin pack"). When stored on disk however, the pack should +be self contained to avoid cyclic dependency. + +The delta data is a sequence of instructions to reconstruct an object +from the base object. If the base object is deltified, it must be +converted to canonical form first. Each instruction appends more and +more data to the target object until it's complete. There are two +supported instructions so far: one for copy a byte range from the +source object and one for inserting new data embedded in the +instruction itself. + +Each instruction has variable length. Instruction type is determined +by the seventh bit of the first octet. The following diagrams follow +the convention in RFC 1951 (Deflate compressed data format). + +==== Instruction to copy from base object + + +----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+ + | 1xxxxxxx | offset1 | offset2 | offset3 | offset4 | size1 | size2 | size3 | + +----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+ + +This is the instruction format to copy a byte range from the source +object. It encodes the offset to copy from and the number of bytes to +copy. Offset and size are in little-endian order. + +All offset and size bytes are optional. This is to reduce the +instruction size when encoding small offsets or sizes. The first seven +bits in the first octet determines which of the next seven octets is +present. If bit zero is set, offset1 is present. If bit one is set +offset2 is present and so on. + +Note that a more compact instruction does not change offset and size +encoding. For example, if only offset2 is omitted like below, offset3 +still contains bits 16-23. It does not become offset2 and contains +bits 8-15 even if it's right next to offset1. + + +----------+---------+---------+ + | 10000101 | offset1 | offset3 | + +----------+---------+---------+ + +In its most compact form, this instruction only takes up one byte +(0x80) with both offset and size omitted, which will have default +values zero. There is another exception: size zero is automatically +converted to 0x10000. + +==== Instruction to add new data + + +----------+============+ + | 0xxxxxxx | data | + +----------+============+ + +This is the instruction to construct target object without the base +object. The following data is appended to the target object. The first +seven bits of the first octet determines the size of data in +bytes. The size must be non-zero. + +==== Reserved instruction + + +----------+============ + | 00000000 | + +----------+============ + +This is the instruction reserved for future expansion. + +== Original (version 1) pack-*.idx files have the following format: + + - The header consists of 256 4-byte network byte order + integers. N-th entry of this table records the number of + objects in the corresponding pack, the first byte of whose + object name is less than or equal to N. This is called the + 'first-level fan-out' table. + + - The header is followed by sorted 24-byte entries, one entry + per object in the pack. Each entry is: + + 4-byte network byte order integer, recording where the + object is stored in the packfile as the offset from the + beginning. + + 20-byte object name. + + - The file is concluded with a trailer: + + A copy of the 20-byte SHA-1 checksum at the end of + corresponding packfile. + + 20-byte SHA-1-checksum of all of the above. + +Pack Idx file: + + -- +--------------------------------+ +fanout | fanout[0] = 2 (for example) |-. +table +--------------------------------+ | + | fanout[1] | | + +--------------------------------+ | + | fanout[2] | | + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | + | fanout[255] = total objects |---. + -- +--------------------------------+ | | +main | offset | | | +index | object name 00XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | | +table +--------------------------------+ | | + | offset | | | + | object name 00XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | | + +--------------------------------+<+ | + .-| offset | | + | | object name 01XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | + | +--------------------------------+ | + | | offset | | + | | object name 01XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | + | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | + | | offset | | + | | object name FFXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | + --| +--------------------------------+<--+ +trailer | | packfile checksum | + | +--------------------------------+ + | | idxfile checksum | + | +--------------------------------+ + .-------. + | +Pack file entry: <+ + + packed object header: + 1-byte size extension bit (MSB) + type (next 3 bit) + size0 (lower 4-bit) + n-byte sizeN (as long as MSB is set, each 7-bit) + size0..sizeN form 4+7+7+..+7 bit integer, size0 + is the least significant part, and sizeN is the + most significant part. + packed object data: + If it is not DELTA, then deflated bytes (the size above + is the size before compression). + If it is REF_DELTA, then + 20-byte base object name SHA-1 (the size above is the + size of the delta data that follows). + delta data, deflated. + If it is OFS_DELTA, then + n-byte offset (see below) interpreted as a negative + offset from the type-byte of the header of the + ofs-delta entry (the size above is the size of + the delta data that follows). + delta data, deflated. + + offset encoding: + n bytes with MSB set in all but the last one. + The offset is then the number constructed by + concatenating the lower 7 bit of each byte, and + for n >= 2 adding 2^7 + 2^14 + ... + 2^(7*(n-1)) + to the result. + + + +== Version 2 pack-*.idx files support packs larger than 4 GiB, and + have some other reorganizations. They have the format: + + - A 4-byte magic number '\377tOc' which is an unreasonable + fanout[0] value. + + - A 4-byte version number (= 2) + + - A 256-entry fan-out table just like v1. + + - A table of sorted 20-byte SHA-1 object names. These are + packed together without offset values to reduce the cache + footprint of the binary search for a specific object name. + + - A table of 4-byte CRC32 values of the packed object data. + This is new in v2 so compressed data can be copied directly + from pack to pack during repacking without undetected + data corruption. + + - A table of 4-byte offset values (in network byte order). + These are usually 31-bit pack file offsets, but large + offsets are encoded as an index into the next table with + the msbit set. + + - A table of 8-byte offset entries (empty for pack files less + than 2 GiB). Pack files are organized with heavily used + objects toward the front, so most object references should + not need to refer to this table. + + - The same trailer as a v1 pack file: + + A copy of the 20-byte SHA-1 checksum at the end of + corresponding packfile. + + 20-byte SHA-1-checksum of all of the above. + +== multi-pack-index (MIDX) files have the following format: + +The multi-pack-index files refer to multiple pack-files and loose objects. + +In order to allow extensions that add extra data to the MIDX, we organize +the body into "chunks" and provide a lookup table at the beginning of the +body. The header includes certain length values, such as the number of packs, +the number of base MIDX files, hash lengths and types. + +All 4-byte numbers are in network order. + +HEADER: + + 4-byte signature: + The signature is: {'M', 'I', 'D', 'X'} + + 1-byte version number: + Git only writes or recognizes version 1. + + 1-byte Object Id Version + Git only writes or recognizes version 1 (SHA1). + + 1-byte number of "chunks" + + 1-byte number of base multi-pack-index files: + This value is currently always zero. + + 4-byte number of pack files + +CHUNK LOOKUP: + + (C + 1) * 12 bytes providing the chunk offsets: + First 4 bytes describe chunk id. Value 0 is a terminating label. + Other 8 bytes provide offset in current file for chunk to start. + (Chunks are provided in file-order, so you can infer the length + using the next chunk position if necessary.) + + The remaining data in the body is described one chunk at a time, and + these chunks may be given in any order. Chunks are required unless + otherwise specified. + +CHUNK DATA: + + Packfile Names (ID: {'P', 'N', 'A', 'M'}) + Stores the packfile names as concatenated, null-terminated strings. + Packfiles must be listed in lexicographic order for fast lookups by + name. This is the only chunk not guaranteed to be a multiple of four + bytes in length, so should be the last chunk for alignment reasons. + + OID Fanout (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'F'}) + The ith entry, F[i], stores the number of OIDs with first + byte at most i. Thus F[255] stores the total + number of objects. + + OID Lookup (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'L'}) + The OIDs for all objects in the MIDX are stored in lexicographic + order in this chunk. + + Object Offsets (ID: {'O', 'O', 'F', 'F'}) + Stores two 4-byte values for every object. + 1: The pack-int-id for the pack storing this object. + 2: The offset within the pack. + If all offsets are less than 2^31, then the large offset chunk + will not exist and offsets are stored as in IDX v1. + If there is at least one offset value larger than 2^32-1, then + the large offset chunk must exist. If the large offset chunk + exists and the 31st bit is on, then removing that bit reveals + the row in the large offsets containing the 8-byte offset of + this object. + + [Optional] Object Large Offsets (ID: {'L', 'O', 'F', 'F'}) + 8-byte offsets into large packfiles. + +TRAILER: + + 20-byte SHA1-checksum of the above contents. |