I use a remote Git repository for version control of a Matlab/Simulink project.
Over time, this repository grew over a few hundred MB because each commit done on Simulink files (*.slx, *.sldd, ...) is stored in binary files.
Shallow cloning at depth 1 remains below 50 MB, but doesn't allow to push back new commits to the remote repository if modificatons were pushed by others in-between.
In order to reduce repository size, I would like to delete automatically some older binary files with following rules:
I tried to use git_filter_repo:
git clone --mirror <url> mymirror
cd mymirror
git filter-repo --path-glob "*.slx" --invert-paths --refs HEAD~50 --refs mybranch
Idea was to keep the 50 commits behind HEAD, and to remove the .slx files after that.
Not fully happy with this idea because it might also remove old files still used in HEAD but checked in before the 50 last commits.
Unexpected result was that the whole branch mybranch disappeared from mirrored repository and that I still find all .slx files in the commits behind the 50 last commits in all other branches. Looks like --invert-paths acts globally.
How to achieve this repository clean up with git_filter_repo or any other git solution?
Both git filter-branch and git filter-repo require a branch. So to rewrite old commits we create a branch pointing to the @~50, filter the branch and then re-parent new commits @~50..@ on top of the filtered branch; it would be impossible to rebase — to many conflicts; many thanks to @jthill for providing helpful guidence about git replace. These commands work for me (I used different wildcard *.txt):
git branch WIP @~50
git filter-repo --path-glob "*.slx" --invert-paths --refs WIP
git replace @~50 WIP
git filter-repo --replace-refs update-no-add
git branch -D WIP