Linus Torvalds wrote: ... > The problem is that the individual object disk format isn't actually the > same as the pack-file object format for one object. The header is > different: a pack-file uses a very dense bit packing, while the individual > object format is a bit less dense. I just stumbled over the same fact and asked myself why there are still two formats. Wouldn't it make more sense to use the pack-file object format for individual objects as well? As it happens individual objects all start with nibble 7 (deflated with default _zlib_ window size of 32K) whereas in the pack-file object format nibble 7 indicates delta entries which never occur as individual files. Roadmap for using pack-file format as individual object disk format: Step 1. When reading individual objects from disk check the first nibble and decode accordingly (see above). Step 2. When writing individual objects to disk write them in pack-file object format. Make that optional (config-file parameter, command line option etc.)? Step 3. Remove code for (old) individual object disk format. Please comment. Regards Stephan - : send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html