How to verify that BFG Repo-Cleaner has correctly removed a large file from a git repository?

Question

I have used the BFG Repo-Cleaner to remove a large file from a git repository:

java -jar ../bfg-1.11.8.jar --delete-folders escrow application.git
cd application.git
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now --aggressive
cd ..
mkdir clone
cd clone
git clone file:///home/damian/temp/TCLIPG-4370/test/application.git

I have used the script(http://stubbisms.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/git-script-to-show-largest-pack-objects-and-trim-your-waist-line/) to check my repository before and after running BFG Repo-Cleaner and it shows the removal of the escrow directory and there is also a reduction in memory in the two repositories.

Everything looks ok, but how can I verify that all my commits are the same? Would I have to create a script with git-for-each-ref and compare the commits, with the same name, in the two repositories, to verify that BFG has worked correctly?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You could get an independent opinion from Eric S. Raymond's repodiffer (part of his reposurgeon project): http://www.catb.org/~esr/reposurgeon/repodiffer.html

You use it like this:

$ repodiffer old-repo-copy.git new-repo-copy.git

The script may take a while to run, but it will tell you precisely what has changed between those two repos. Small sample of output:

...
1a54b66 -> 9b11d44: same differences as for 5c572dc -> 6e8307c.
changed: e00a601 -> 30a42c8 in tree.
L only:
  frontend/assets/big.mp4
R only:
  frontend/assets/big.mp4.REMOVED.git-id
...

Full disclosure: I'm the author of the BFG Repo-Cleaner.