git-annex/doc/git-annex-preferred-content.mdwn

# NAME

git-annex-preferred-content - which files are wanted in a repository

# DESCRIPTION

Each repository has a preferred content setting, which specifies content
that the repository wants to have present. These settings can be configured
using `git annex vicfg` or `git annex wanted`.
They are used by the `--auto` option, by `git annex sync --content`,
by clusters, and by the git-annex assistant.

While preferred content expresses a preference, it can be overridden
by simply using `git annex drop`. On the other hand, required content
settings are enforced; `git annex drop` will refuse to drop a file if
doing so would violate its required content settings. A repository's
required content can be configured using `git annex vicfg` or
`git annex required`.

# SYNTAX

Preferred content expressions use a similar syntax to 
the [[git-annex-matching-options]](1), without the dashes.
For example:

	exclude=archive/* and (include=*.mp3 or smallerthan=1mb)

The idea is that you write an expression that files are matched against. If
a file matches, the repository wants to store its content. If it doesn't,
the repository wants to drop its content (if there are enough copies
elsewhere to allow removing it).

# EXPRESSIONS

* `include=glob` / `exclude=glob`

  Match files to include, or exclude.

  While the command-line options --include=glob and --exclude=glob match
  files relative to the current directory, preferred content expressions
  match files relative to the top of the git repository.

  A glob is something like `foo.*` or `b?r`. 
  Globs can also contain character classes, 
  like `foo[Bb]ar`, as well as additional POSIX character classes like
  `[[:space:]]`. Which is useful, since a glob in a preferred content
  expression cannot contain spaces. See the `glob(7)` man page for more
  about globs.

  For example, suppose you put files into `archive` directories
  when you're done with them. Then you could configure your laptop to prefer
  to not retain those files, like this: `exclude=*/archive/*`

  When a subdirectory is being exported or imported to a special remote (see
  [[git-annex-export]](1)) and [[git-annex-import]](1), these match relative
  to the top of the subdirectory.

  Note that, when a command is run with the `--all` option, or in a bare
  repository, there is no filename associated with an annexed object,
  and so "include=" and "exclude=" will not match.

* `copies=number`

  Matches only files that git-annex believes to have the specified number
  of copies, or more. Note that it does not check remotes to verify that
  the copies still exist.

  To decide if content should be dropped, git-annex evaluates the preferred
  content expression under the assumption that the content has *already* been
  dropped. If the content would not be wanted then, the drop can be done.
  So, for example, `copies=2` in a preferred content expression lets
  content be dropped only when there are currently 3 copies of it, including
  the repo it's being dropped from. This is different than running `git annex
  drop --copies=2`, which will drop files that currently have 2 copies.

* `copies=trustlevel:number`

  Matches only files that git-annex believes have the specified number
  copies, on remotes with the specified trust level. For example,
  `copies=trusted:2`

  To match any trust level at or higher than a given level,
  use `trustlevel+`. For example, `copies=semitrusted+:2`

* `copies=groupname:number`

  Matches only files that git-annex believes have the specified number of
  copies, on remotes in the specified group. For example,
  `copies=archive:2`

  Preferred content expressions have no equivalent to the `--in`
  option, but groups can accomplish similar things. You can add
  repositories to groups, and match against the groups in a
  preferred content expression. So rather than `--in=usbdrive`,
  put all the USB drives into a "transfer" group, and use
  `copies=transfer:1`

* `lackingcopies=number`

  Matches only files that git-annex believes need the specified number or
  more additional copies to be made in order to satisfy their numcopies
  settings.

* `approxlackingcopies=number`

  Like lackingcopies, but does not look at .gitattributes annex.numcopies
  settings. This makes it significantly faster.

* `inbackend=backendname`

  Matches only files whose content is stored using the specified key-value
  backend.

  See [[git-annex-backends]](1) for information about available backends.

* `securehash`

  Matches only files whose content is hashed using a cryptographically
  secure function.

* `inallgroup=groupname`

  Matches only files that git-annex believes are present in all repositories
  in the specified group.

* `onlyingroup=groupname`

  Matches files that git-annex believes are present in at least one
  repository that is in the specified group, and are not present in any
  repositories that are not in the specified group.

* `smallerthan=size` / `largerthan=size`

  Matches only files whose content is smaller than, or larger than the
  specified size.

  The size can be specified with any commonly used units, for example,
  "0.5 gb" or "100 KiloBytes"

* `metadata=field=glob`

  Matches only files that have a metadata field attached with a value that
  matches the glob. The values of metadata fields are matched case
  insensitively.

  A glob is something like `foo.*` or `b?r`. 
  Globs can also contain character classes, 
  like `foo[Bb]ar`, as well as additional POSIX character classes like
  `[[:space:]]`. Which is useful, since a glob in a preferred content
  expression cannot contain spaces. See the `glob(7)` man page for more
  about globs.

  To match a tag "done", use `metadata=tag=done`

  To match author metadata, use `metadata=author=*Smith`

* `metadata=field<number` / `metadata=field>number` 
* `metadata=field<=number` / `metadata=field>=number`

  Matches only files that have a metadata field attached with a value that
  is a number and is less than or greater than the specified number.

  To match PDFs with between 100 and 200 pages (assuming something has set
  that metadata), use `metadata=pagecount>=100 and metadata=pagecount<=200`

* `present`

  Makes content be wanted if it's present, but not otherwise.

  This leaves it up to you to use git-annex manually
  to move content around. You can use this to avoid preferred content
  settings from affecting a subdirectory. For example:
  `auto/* or (include=ad-hoc/* and present)`

  Note that `not present` is not a reasonable thing to put in a preferred
  content expression. It says to get content that's not present, but then
  drop it! If that somehow gets into a preferred content expression,
  git-annex will recognize that the preferred content expression is not stable,
  and make it never match.

* `inpreferreddir`

  Makes content be preferred if it's in a directory (located anywhere
  in the tree) with a particular name. 

  The name of the directory can be configured using 
  `git annex enableremote $remote preferreddir=$dirname`

  (If no directory name is configured, it uses "public" by default.)

  Note that, when a command is run with the `--all` option, or in a bare
  repository, there is no filename associated with an annexed object,
  and so "inpreferreddir" will not match.

* `standard`

  git-annex comes with some built-in preferred content expressions, that
  can be used with repositories that are in some standard groups
  such as "client" and "transfer".

  When a repository is in exactly one such group, you can use the "standard"
  keyword in its preferred content expression, to match whatever content
  the group's expression matches.

  Most often, the whole preferred content expression is simply "standard".
  But, you can do more complicated things, for example:
  `standard or include=otherdir/*`

* `groupwanted`

  The "groupwanted" keyword can be used to refer to a preferred content
  expression that is associated with a group, as long as there is exactly
  one such expression amoung the groups a repository is in. This is like
  the "standard" keyword, but you can configure the preferred content
  expressions using `git annex groupwanted`.

  When writing a groupwanted preferred content expression,
  you can use all the keywords documented here, including "standard".
  (But not "groupwanted".)

  For example, to make a variant of the standard client preferred content
  expression that does not want files in the "out" directory, you
  could run: `git annex groupwanted client "standard and exclude=out/*"`

  Then repositories that are in the client group and have their preferred
  content expression set to "groupwanted" will use that, while
  other client repositories that have their preferred content expression
  set to "standard" will use the standard expression.

  Or, you could make a new group, with your own custom preferred content
  expression tuned for your needs, and every repository you put in this
  group and make its preferred content be "groupwanted" will use it.

  For example, the archive group only wants to archive 1 copy of each file,
  spread among every repository in the group.
  Here's how to configure a group named redundantarchive, that instead
  wants to contain 3 copies of each file:
  
	git annex groupwanted redundantarchive "not (copies=redundantarchive:3)"
	for repo in foo bar baz; do
		git annex group $repo redundantarchive
		git annex wanted $repo groupwanted
	done

* `unused`

  Matches only keys that `git annex unused` has determined to be unused.

  This is related the the --unused option.
  However, putting `unused` in a preferred content expression 
  doesn't make git-annex consider those unused keys. So when git-annex is
  only checking preferred content expressions against files in the
  repository (which are obviously used), `unused` in a preferred
  content expression won't match anything.

  So when is `unused` useful in a preferred content expression?

  Using `git annex sync --content --all` will operate on all files,
  including unused ones, and take `unused` in preferred content expressions
  into account.
  
  The git-annex assistant periodically scans for unused files, and
  moves them to some repository whose preferred content expression
  says it wants them. (Or, if annex.expireunused is set, it may just delete
  them.)

* `balanced=groupname[:number]`

  Makes content be evenly balanced amoung repositories in the group.
  
  The number is the number of repositories in the group that will
  want each file. When not specified, the default is 1.
  
  For example, "balanced=backup:2", when there are 3 members of the backup
  group, will make each backup repository want 2/3rds of the files.

  For this to work, each repository in the group should have its preferred
  content set to the same expression. Using `groupwanted` is a good
  way to do that.

  The sizes of files are not taken into account, so it's possible for
  one repository to get larger than usual files and so fill up before
  the other repositories. But files are only wanted by repositories that
  have enough free space to hold them. So once a repository is full,
  the remaining repositories will have any additional files balanced
  amoung them. For git-annex to know when a repository is full, 
  you must use [[git-annex-maxsize]](1) to specify the size of each
  repository in the group.

  This usually avoids moving files between repositories, even
  if that means that things are not optimally balanced. Some of the ways
  that it can get out of balance include adding a new repository to the
  group, or a file getting copied into more repositories in the
  group than the specified number, or some of the repositories filling up.

  Running git-annex commands with the `--rebalance` option will make this
  expression instead behave like the `fullybalanced` expression, which will
  make repositories want to move files around as necessary in order to get
  fully balanced.

  Using this in a preferred content expression makes git-annex need to do
  some additional work to keep track of how full repositories are. Usually
  that won't affect performance much. However, the first time git-annex
  processes this expression in a given git repository, it will need to
  calculate the sizes of all repositories, which can be slow when there are
  a lot of files. When this causes git-annex to do a lot of work, it will
  display "(calculating repository sizes)".

  Note that `not balanced` not a reasonable thing to use in a preferred
  content expression for the same reasons as `not present`.

* `fullybalanced=groupname[:number]`

  This is like `balanced`, but allows moving content between repositories
  in the group at any time to keep it fully balanced.

  Normally "balanced=groupname:number" is the same as 
  "(fullybalanced=groupname:number and not copies=groupname:number) or present"

  When the `--rebalance` option is used, `balanced` is the same as
  `fullybalanced`.

  When the specified number is greater than 1, and too many repositories
  in the group are more than 90% full (as configured by
  annex.fullybalancedthreshhold), this behaves like `fullysizebalanced`.

  For example, `fullybalanced=foo:3`, when group foo has 5 repositories,
  two 50% full and three 99% full, will make some content move from the
  full repositories to the others. Moving content like that is expensive,
  but it allows new files to continue to be stored on the specified number
  of repositories.

* `sizebalanced=groupname:number`

  Distributes content amoung repositories in the group, keeping
  repositories proportionally full. 
  
  The number is the number of repositories in the group that will
  want each file. When not specified, the default is 1.

  For this to work, you must use [[git-annex-maxsize]](1) to specify
  the size of each repository in the group. When a repository's
  maxsize has not been specified, it will not want any files.

  For example, if one repository in the group has a maximum size of
  100 gb with 60 gb used, and another has a maximum size of 50 gb with
  25 gb used, the smaller one will want files (that fit in it),
  and the larger one won't want any files 
  (that would fit in the smaller one)
  until the smaller one gets equally full.

  Note that, once a repository contains a file, it will continue to want
  it, even if it's more full than other repositories. This is to avoid
  churn in moving files around.
  
  This is more likely to get out of balance than the `balanced=` expression
  is, because git-annex does not always have a consistent knowledge of 
  how full repositories are. Consider for example if a laptop and a desktop
  are each sending a new file to the group. They will both pick whichever
  repository was least full, but that means both files go to the same
  repository, when a better solution might have been to send the smaller
  file to a different repository. When using `balanced=` in the same
  situation, it's less likely that a repository will want both files.
  
  Running git-annex commands with the `--rebalance` option will make this
  expression instead behave like the `fullysizebalanced` expression, which
  will make repositories want to move files around as necessary in order to
  get fully balanced.

  Note that `not sizebalanced` not a reasonable thing to use in a preferred
  content expression for the same reasons as `not present`.

* `fullysizebalanced=groupname:number`

  This is like `sizebalanced`, but allows moving content between repositories
  in the group at any time to keep it fully balanced.

  Normally "sizebalanced=groupname:number" is the same as 
  "(fullysizebalanced=groupname:number and not copies=groupname:number) or present"

  When the `--rebalance` option is used, `sizebalanced` is the same as
  `fullysizebalanced`.

* `anything`

  Always matches.

* `nothing`

  Never matches. (Same as "not anything")

* `not expression`

  Inverts what the expression matches. For example, `not include=archive/*`
  is the same as `exclude=archive/*`

* `and` / `or` / `( expression )`

  These can be used to build up more complicated expressions.

# TESTING

To check at the command line which files are matched by a repository's
preferred content settings, you can use the --want-get and --want-drop
options.

For example, git annex find --want-get --not --in . will find all the files
that git annex get --auto will want to get, and git annex find --want-drop --in
. will find all the files that git annex drop --auto will want to drop.

The --explain option can be used to understand why a complex preferred
content expression matches or fails to match. The expression will
be displayed, with each term followed by "[TRUE]" or "[FALSE]" to indicate
the value. Irrelevant terms will be ommitted from the explanation,
for example `"exclude=* and copies=1"` will be displayed as 
`"exclude=*[FALSE]"`

# SEE ALSO

[[git-annex]](1)

[[git-annex-vicfg]](1)

[[git-annex-wanted]](1)

[[git-annex-maxsize]](1)

<https://git-annex.branchable.com/preferred_content/>

<https://git-annex.branchable.com/preferred_content/standard_groups/>

# AUTHOR

Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>

<http://git-annex.branchable.com/>

Warning: Automatically converted into a man page by mdwn2man. Edit with care.