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50

answers:

1
+3  Q: 

Finding the date/time a file was first added to a git repository

Is there a simple git command to determine the "creation date" of a file in a repository, i.e. the date it was first added? It would be best if it can determine this even through file renames/moves.

I'd like it to be a computer-readable one-line output; it may be that I haven't figured out the correct git log <fname> options to do this.

+2  A: 

git log --format=%aD <FILE> | tail -1

With this command you can out all date about this file and extract the last

shingara  2010-03-05 22:29:11
You'll also need `--follow` to follow the log through renames as the OP asked. Also good practice to add `--` before the filename just in case it clashes with an option or ref name.
Steve Folly  2010-03-06 01:07:04
Since I was planning on calling `git` from Python, I was hoping for a command that doesn't require piping. I suppose I can just get the final line with Python, though. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Seth Johnson  2010-03-07 21:00:39
@Seth: you could use `subprocess.Popen` and `communicate()` to read stdout into a string. Split the string on \n into a list, then get element -1. Check out http://docs.python.org/library/subprocess.html#popen-objects
Steve Folly  2010-03-07 23:15:27
@Steve Folly: I meant that I knew how to use subprocess and `some_string.split('\n')[-1]`, but I was asking for thoughts on getting Git to return only the first log entry.
Seth Johnson  2010-03-07 23:36:09
Actually, since git leaves a trailing newline, you have to do [-2].
Seth Johnson  2010-03-16 18:06:36

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