Does git gc execute at deterministic intervals?

Question

I've been reading up on git, and I have a very particular question I am struggling to answer.

When does git gc execute autonomously?

I've been hearing through the grape-vine of various forums that it occurs by default on a push or a fetch/pull - but I cannot find any source that verifies this. Even the documentation itself only gets this specific (emphasis mine):

Some git commands may automatically run git gc; see the --auto flag below for details

and the --auto flag specifies

Some git commands run git gc --auto after performing operations that could create many loose objects.

I want to be able to deterministically say:

"Loose tree and blob files will not have been cleaned up by git until one of the following commands is run: {mystery list here}. When running one of these commands, if the number of loose objects exceeds the value of gc.auto, git will automatically compress the objects into a packfile".

maybe it's intentionally vague to not constrain future versions? — the8472, Oct 13 '16 at 16:40
maybe, but I'd like some kind of official verification - one way or another — Matt, Oct 13 '16 at 19:57

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 11 '18 at 03:58

8

Currently those are:

fetch
merge
am
receive-pack
commit (starting with Git 2.17, Q2 2018)

Actual list can be verified by doing a code search.

Also from that you can see that gc on receive can be disabled with receive.autogc, others just run the gc in the end.

edited Mar 11 '18 at 03:58

VonC

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answered Oct 14 '16 at 15:03

Ivan

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Does git gc execute at deterministic intervals?

1 Answers1