Re: Can git log <file> follow log of its origins?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 29, 2008, 21:21 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr6g0mip2.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <790332.92389.qm@web45907.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Max Pollard <ajaxsupremo@yahoo.com> writes:

Show 17 quoted lines

>> Max Pollard writes:
>> 
>> > I only see the log corresponding to the 2nd commit (v1.5.3.5).
>> 
>> That is what you are asking "git log" to show.  "git log b.txt"
>> means "please simplify the history by throwing away commits that
>> do not have changes to paths that match b.txt, and then show the
>> resulting log with the change pertaining to that path".  The
>> first commit does not change a path called b.txt (in other
>> words, "git show --stat HEAD^" will not give diffstat for "b.txt"),
>> so that commit is not shown.
>> 
>> $ git log --pretty=oneline --name-status -C -C
>> 
>
> ...  So -C -C is the answer, with --name-status or --stat to
> actually show the result.

The real "answer" part in that example is not -C -C. Obviously, you would need double-C aka --find-copies-harder, because you did not change a.txt when creating b.txt, so it is still needed.

But the essential part of the answer is "not giving b.txt as the pathspec, so that whatever _other_ file that could have been copied into it is still visible when the command works".

If you say "git log --name-status -C -C -- b.txt", you would be back to square one.