Subject: [PATCH v2 2/2] maintenance(geometric): do release the `.idx` files before repacking

From: "Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 May 2026 12:51:13 +0000

From: Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]>

As is done for all the other maintenance tasks, let's release the ODB
also before starting the geometric repacking. That way, the `.idx` files
won't be `mmap()`ed when they are to be deleted (which does not work on
Windows because you cannot delete files on that platform as long as they
are kept open by a process).

This regression was introduced by 9bc151850c1c (builtin/maintenance:
introduce "geometric-repack" task, 2025-10-24), but was only noticed
once geometric repacking was made the default in 452b12c2e0fe (builtin/
maintenance: use "geometric" strategy by default, 2026-02-24).

The fix recapitulates my work from df76ee7b77f0 (run-command: offer to
close the object store before running, 2021-09-09) & friends.

To guard against future regressions of this kind, add a check to
`run_and_verify_geometric_pack()` in `t7900` that detects orphaned
`.idx` files left behind after repacking. Contrary to interactive
calls, the `git maintenance` call in that test case would _not_ block on
Windows, asking whether to retry deleting that file, which is the reason
why this bug was not caught earlier.

Furthermore, since the default behavior of `DeleteFileW()` was changed
at some point between Windows 10 Build 17134.1304 and Build 18363.657
to use POSIX semantics (see https://stackoverflow.com/a/60512798),
the added orphaned-`.idx` check would be insufficient to catch this
regression on modern Windows without emulating legacy delete semantics
via `GIT_TEST_LEGACY_DELETE=1`.

This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/6210.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]>
---
 builtin/gc.c           |  1 +
 t/t7900-maintenance.sh | 22 +++++++++++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/builtin/gc.c b/builtin/gc.c
index 3a71e314c9..84a66d3240 100644
--- a/builtin/gc.c
+++ b/builtin/gc.c
@@ -1590,6 +1590,7 @@ static int maintenance_task_geometric_repack(struct maintenance_run_opts *opts,
 	pack_geometry_split(&geometry);
 
 	child.git_cmd = 1;
+	child.odb_to_close = the_repository->objects;
 
 	strvec_pushl(&child.args, "repack", "-d", "-l", NULL);
 	if (geometry.split < geometry.pack_nr)
diff --git a/t/t7900-maintenance.sh b/t/t7900-maintenance.sh
index 4700beacc1..f497f51b23 100755
--- a/t/t7900-maintenance.sh
+++ b/t/t7900-maintenance.sh
@@ -532,7 +532,16 @@ run_and_verify_geometric_pack () {
 
 	# And verify that there are no loose objects anymore.
 	git count-objects -v >count &&
-	test_grep '^count: 0$' count
+	test_grep '^count: 0$' count &&
+
+	# Verify that no orphaned .idx files were left behind. On
+	# Windows, a missing odb_to_close causes the parent to hold
+	# mmap handles on .idx files, silently preventing their
+	# deletion by the child git-repack process.
+	ls .git/objects/pack/pack-*.idx .git/objects/pack/pack-*.pack |
+	sed "s/\.pack$/.idx/" |
+	sort | uniq -u >orphaned-idx &&
+	test_must_be_empty orphaned-idx
 }
 
 test_expect_success 'geometric repacking task' '
@@ -580,8 +589,19 @@ test_expect_success 'geometric repacking task' '
 
 		# And these two small packs should now be merged via the
 		# geometric repack. The large packfile should remain intact.
+		cp -R .git/objects .git/objects.save &&
 		run_and_verify_geometric_pack 2 &&
 
+		# On Windows, verify the same with legacy delete semantics
+		# that reject deletion of mmap-held .idx files.
+		if test_have_prereq MINGW
+		then
+			rm -rf .git/objects &&
+			mv .git/objects.save .git/objects &&
+			test_env GIT_TEST_LEGACY_DELETE=1 \
+				run_and_verify_geometric_pack 2
+		fi &&
+
 		# If we now add two more objects and repack twice we should
 		# then see another all-into-one repack. This time around
 		# though, as we have unreachable objects, we should also see a
-- 
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