On Tuesday 2006 December 12 14:28, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > You are not by any chance talking about the --remote option to > git-archive? I wasn't; but that's certainly a helpful switch. It's certainly a huge help. > If you want to reduce the number of objects to be downloaded, by telling > the other side what you have, you literally end up with something like > shallow clone: the other side _has_ to support it. I suppose so; but I was thinking more an automated way of getting the data that is supplied for the kernel anyway. So: base-v1.0.0.tar.gz patch-v1.0.1.gz patch-v1.0.2.gz etc Each patch is obviously smaller than "base". Git could easily make the patches, and each of those patches could be fed by hand into a repository with git-apply. It doesn't seem like something that would require support on the other side, because it isn't so much a shallow clone (which /would/ preserve history, making it available if wanted); it is pulling just, say, tagged commits out of an existing repository. Given a list of tags it is almost: git-archive <get me base> ssh remote git-diff v1.0.0..v1.0.1 | git-apply; git commit ssh remote git-diff v1.0.1..v1.0.2 | git-apply; git commit If that makes sense? Obviously though it would be possible to use git rather than ssh to do this. However... please don't waste any more time thinking about this; it's not a problem I have that needs a solution - it was more a "because I'm curious" sort of question. Andy -- Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIEE andyparkins@xxxxxxxxx - To unsubscribe from this list: 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