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gc docs: clarify that "gc" doesn't throw away referenced objects

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>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
maint
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 6 years ago committed by Junio C Hamano
parent
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daecbf2261
  1. 4
      Documentation/git-gc.txt

4
Documentation/git-gc.txt

@ -119,8 +119,8 @@ anywhere in your repository. In @@ -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.

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