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Akash Pattnaik
Akash Pattnaik

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Git 2.38 has changed!

Hey there everyone ๐Ÿ‘‹!

All developers have used git, right? Well, the recent update dated on 13-10-22 [DD-MM-YYYY] has somewhat changed git forever.

๐Ÿชธ Backstory of Git

๐Ÿฒ Git is free and open source software for distributed version control: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. It was initially released on 7 April, 2005. Git was developed the same person who built the the great linux kernal.

๐Ÿฆ„ Introduction of Scalar

Scalar has been a side project of microsoft for years now. It is open-source since the very beginning.
๐Ÿ˜Ž Scalar is a tool that helps Git scale to some of the largest Git repositories. It achieves this by enabling some advanced Git features like the following -

  • Partial clone: reduces time to get a working repository by not downloading all Git objects right away.

  • Background prefetch: downloads Git object data from all remotes every hour, reducing the amount of time for foreground git fetch calls.

  • Sparse-checkout: limits the size of your working directory.

  • File system monitor: tracks the recently modified files and eliminates the need for Git to scan the entire worktree.

  • Commit-graph: accelerates commit walks and reachability calculations, speeding up commands like git log.

  • Multi-pack-index: enables fast object lookups across many pack-files.

  • Incremental repack: Repacks the packed Git data into fewer pack-file without disrupting concurrent commands by using the multi-pack-index.

๐Ÿ˜ฎ Git adapts scalar

In the recent update of git (2.38.1), a new executable has been included with the git package - scalar.

It's is going to be intense as we uncover all the commands and their uses in the scalar executable.

Scalar preview

As you can see in the picture given above, scalar becomes a command in the shell just like git did.

๐Ÿงก Using Scalar

๐Ÿ‰ Just for a stater, let's clone a repository using scalar.

Scalar clone preview

You can get to know more about the entire scalar executable and it's history here.

๐Ÿ™ Connect with me

  • Mail - akashpattnaik.github@gamil.com
  • Github - BLUE-DEVIL1134
  • Twitter - akash_am1

Top comments (1)

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derlin profile image
Lucy Linder

Thank you for the update!

Is scalar compatible with any git repo, or do you need to do something specific as is the case for git lfs ?