Git 2.45 launches with reftable support and initial SHA-1/SHA-256 interoperability

Git, the widely used version control system, has launched its 2.45 version, featuring experimental support for reftable and SHA-256 interoperability.

The latest version introduces preliminary support for a new reference storage backend known as reftable. This new format is designed to handle repositories with a large number of references more efficiently, promising faster lookups, reads, and writes. The reftable format aims to consume minimal space while providing rapid lookups, a solution to the growing pains experienced by the existing backend in handling repositories with a massive number of references.

Furthermore, Git 2.45 brings experimental preliminary support for limited interoperability between SHA-1 and SHA-256. The new release introduces a compatibility object format, allowing objects to be referred to by either their given hash or their compatibility hash. While this feature is still in the experimental phase and may not function as expected, it represents a significant step towards full interoperability between SHA-1 and SHA-256 repositories.

In addition to these major updates, Git 2.45 also includes numerous other enhancements and bug fixes, as detailed in the mailing list announcement.