A bit OT: git - ridiculous memory requirements

[Todd Zullinger]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> On 03/30/2012 08:43 AM, Vaclav Mocek wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have a cloned GCC git repository, on PC with 1.5GB of RAM and 3GB swap.
>>
>> When I run "$git gc --aggressive", I will get after few hours an error:

I'm curious why you're using git gc --aggressive on a freshly cloned 
repository.  Any particular reason?

>> $ git gc --aggressive 
>> Counting objects: 1332887, done. 
>> Delta compression using up to 2 threads. 
>> fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 4838335 bytes) 
>> error: failed to run repack 
>> $
>>
>> 4.5GB of memory is not enough, what is that?

It's just a fact of the way --aggressive works by default.  You can 
tune this a bit using the gc.aggressiveWindow config option.  
Generally, git gc --aggressive isn't something you want to run.  
Linus has said it...

     is mostly dumb. It's really only useful for the case of "I know I 
     have a *really* bad pack, and I want to throw away all the bad 
     packing decisions I have done".¹

> File a bug report

If you do, please use the git mailing list to report this.  As a 
Fedora git maintainer, I can assure you that we won't be patching git 
gc --aggressive ourselves.  And trying to ferry information back and 
forth to the git list for a bug like this would be painful and 
inefficient for everyone involved.

Ideally, you should probably experiment with git repack if you have a 
need to trim the size of the repository.  Some discussion of this is 
available at the same URL referenced earlier with Linus' commends on 
git gc --aggressive not being all that useful.

¹ http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2007-12/msg00165.html

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe, he'll believe
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