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[v3,10/11] gc docs: clarify that "gc" doesn't throw away referenced objects

Message ID 20190322093242.5508-11-avarab@gmail.com (mailing list archive)
State New, archived
Headers show
Series gc docs: modernize and fix the documentation | expand

Commit Message

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason March 22, 2019, 9:32 a.m. UTC
Amend the "NOTES" section to fix up wording that's been with us since
3ffb58be0a ("doc/git-gc: add a note about what is collected",
2008-04-23).

I can't remember when/where anymore (I think Freenode #Git), but at
some point I was having a conversation with someone who was convinced
that "gc" would prune things only referenced by e.g. refs/pull/*, and
pointed to this section as proof.

It turned out that they'd read the "branches and tags" wording here
and thought just refs/{heads,tags}/* and refs/remotes/* etc. would be
kept, which is what we enumerate explicitly.

So let's say "other refs", even though just above we say "objects that
are referenced anywhere in your repository".

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/git-gc.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
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Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/git-gc.txt b/Documentation/git-gc.txt
index 165f05e999..49aec5435b 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-gc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-gc.txt
@@ -119,8 +119,8 @@  anywhere in your repository. In
 particular, it will keep not only objects referenced by your current set
 of branches and tags, but also objects referenced by the index,
 remote-tracking branches, refs saved by 'git filter-branch' in
-refs/original/, or reflogs (which may reference commits in branches
-that were later amended or rewound).
+refs/original/, reflogs (which may reference commits in branches
+that were later amended or rewound), and anything else in the refs/* namespace.
 If you are expecting some objects to be deleted and they aren't, check
 all of those locations and decide whether it makes sense in your case to
 remove those references.