Problem using git-filter-branch to move tree when repository name contains space

From: Jean-François Burdet <jfburdet@revelate.com>
Date: Apr 1, 2011, 14:30 UTC
Message-ID: <4D95E182.6030903@revelate.com>

Hi,

I want to move my repository (wich is contained in a directory whose name's containing a space) root tree to a subdirectory.

I followed what's documented in http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-filter-branch.html , using the last example :

git filter-branch --index-filter \
        'git ls-files -s | sed "s-\t\"*-&newsubdir/-" |
                GIT_INDEX_FILE=$GIT_INDEX_FILE.new \
                        git update-index --index-info &&
         mv $GIT_INDEX_FILE.new $GIT_INDEX_FILE' HEAD

But, look at the following two scenario:

Scenario 1 : Repository have no space in it, everything works fine :
jfburdet@nagios:~$ mkdir gittest
jfburdet@nagios:~$ cd gittest/
jfburdet@nagios:~/gittest$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/jfburdet/gittest/.git/
jfburdet@nagios:~/gittest$ touch a_file
jfburdet@nagios:~/gittest$ git add .
jfburdet@nagios:~/gittest$ git commit -m "A commit"
[master (root-commit) e6261d5] A commit
 Committer: jfburdet <jfburdet@(none)>
 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 a_file
 jfburdet@nagios:~/gittest$ git filter-branch --index-filter \

>         'git ls-files -s | sed "s-\t\"*-&newsubdir/-" |
>                 GIT_INDEX_FILE=$GIT_INDEX_FILE.new \
>                         git update-index --index-info &&
>          mv $GIT_INDEX_FILE.new $GIT_INDEX_FILE' HEAD

Rewrite e6261d591357f39e1b4f95c0dfeb7a133e211161 (1/1) Ref 'refs/heads/master' was rewritten

Scenario 2 : Repository have space in its directory name, making the
command fails
jfburdet@nagios:~$ mkdir "git test"
jfburdet@nagios:~$ cd "git test"
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/jfburdet/git test/.git/
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$ touch a_file
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$ git add .
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$ git commit -m "A commit"
[master (root-commit) 3658e30] A commit
 Committer: jfburdet <jfburdet@(none)>
 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 a_file
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$ git filter-branch --index-filter \

>         'git ls-files -s | sed "s-\t\"*-&newsubdir/-" |
>                 GIT_INDEX_FILE=$GIT_INDEX_FILE.new \
>                         git update-index --index-info &&
>          mv $GIT_INDEX_FILE.new $GIT_INDEX_FILE' HEAD

Rewrite 3658e305df3ace21d39bf57dd4e0e5627818dfcc (1/1)mv: target
`test/.git-rewrite/t/../index' is not a directory
index filter failed: git ls-files -s | sed "s-  \"*-&newsubdir/-" |
                GIT_INDEX_FILE=$GIT_INDEX_FILE.new \
                        git update-index --index-info &&
         mv $GIT_INDEX_FILE.new $GIT_INDEX_FILE
jfburdet@nagios:~/git test$

I tried to tweak the sed expression with no success. Can someone help me with that ?

Please note that I can't simply rename the directory before firing up "git filter-branch" because I'm in a process of merging repositories and their name are mandatory.

Cheers,

Jean-François,