What's the purpose of git-mv?

Question

From what I understand, Git doesn't really need to track file rename/move/copy operations, so what's the real purpose of git mv? The man page isn't specially descriptive...

Is it obsolete? Is it an internal command, not meant to be used by regular users?

Answer 1

git mv oldname newname

is just shorthand for:

mv oldname newname
git add newname
git rm oldname

i.e. it updates the index for both old and new paths automatically.

Answer 2

From the official GitFaq:

Git has a rename command git mv, but that is just a convenience. The effect is indistinguishable from removing the file and adding another with different name and the same content