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Question

Is it possible to move/rename files in git and maintain their history?

Answer 1

+1 A:

git log --follow [file]

will show you the history through renames.

Erik Hesselink 2010-02-22 22:25:05

Answer 2

+6 A:

Git detects renames rather than persisting the operation with the commit, so whether you use git mv or just a plain mv doesn't matter.

The log command, however, takes a --follow argument that continues history before a rename operation (that is, it searches for similar content using the heuristics):

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-log.html

To lookup the full history use the following command:

git log --follow ./path/to/file

troethom 2010-02-22 22:26:14

It would be nice not to need the --follow but I guess this will have to do. Thanks for your answer.

sgargan 2010-02-22 22:55:07

I suspect this is a performance consideration. If you don't need the full history, it will sure take longer time scanning the content. The easiest way is to setup an alias `git config alias.logf "log --follow"` and just write `git logf ./path/to/file`.

troethom 2010-02-23 07:36:38

I like that alot! Thanks for the tip.

sgargan 2010-02-25 07:45:23

But which path do you specify, the old path or the new path? And if ti's the old path, how do you know to specify the old path?

Joseph Kingry 2010-04-07 20:27:31

You should just use the new path. It works the way that Git traverses back through history and switches to the old path, when a rename is detected.

troethom 2010-04-08 09:50:47

Answer 3

A:

It is not working for me.

I want to retain the old history of a file which was renamed to new name.

Please let me know if there is a way.

-Jee

jee 2010-08-03 05:28:21

Note that git uses the content of the file to detect renames. If you have substantially rewritten the content, then the rename tracking won't work. You can adjust the sensitivity, but offhand I don't know the syntax.

Benjol 2010-08-03 05:50:58

is it possible to copy the old history of a file to another file i.e. renamed file history to new name.I was trying with copy and replace the file name to point the history to the newly renamed file. is it possible with GIT.Please let me know if there is a way to do this using external scripts and maitaining the history for renamed file.-Jee

jee 2010-08-05 06:25:53

Answer 4

A:

is it possible to copy the old history of a file to another file i.e. renamed file history to new name. I was trying with copy and replace the file name to point the history to the newly renamed file. is it possible with GIT.

Please let me know if there is a way to do this using external scripts and maitaining the history for renamed file.

-Jee

jee 2010-08-05 06:26:24

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Is it possible to move/rename files in git and maintain their history?

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