On Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 9:33 AM Daniele Sassoli <danielesassoli@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hi All, > > When reading the output `git count-objects -v` there is a `garbage` field. At > first I thought this would highlight objects that are considered "garbage", i.e. > could be garbage collected. However, I kept noticing that this wasn't the case, > despite my repository having plenty of dangling objects (that where removed once > I run `git gc --prune=now`), garbage kept being 0. > > I then turned to reading the docs, which state: > garbage: the number of files in the object database that are neither > valid loose objects nor valid packs > > I don't think I've ever seen a definition of an invalid object? I tried adding > random chars to an object, effectively corrupting the repository(which `git > fsck` correctly picked up), but count-objects kept returning 0 at the garbage > field. > > The only way I've been able to get count-objects to report some garbage is by > creating files in the packs directory (or in any of the sub-directories of > `objects` folder) with random names, like "test", or sometimes I've seen it > report the existence of lock files or even preserved files. > > So my question is, am I fundamentally misunderstanding what garbage means, are > the docs simply unclear or is the functionality not working as expected? > > Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond. > Dani The most common way I've seen to get garbage files into the repository is either someone pushing from elsewhere into the current repository and interrupting the transfer mid-way through, or someone fetching from elsewhere into the current repository and interrupting the transfer mid-way through. In either case, there will be a partial packfile with a temporary name (since we use a temporary name at the beginning and rename to the final location after the transfer is complete), and `git count-objects -v` will report it as garbage.
