Re: How to fork a file (git cp ?)

From: Piotr Krukowiecki <piotr.krukowiecki@gmail.com>
Date: May 5, 2011, 18:02 UTC
Message-ID: <BANLkTimD7byL=rgy79BWFT3vqKpzv9aNOQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7v1v0ddhbz.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 4:14 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> "Mikhail T." <mi+thun@aldan.algebra.com> writes:
>
>> On 04.05.2011 17:02, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>> Well, if you come from the mindset that a "file" has an identity (hence
>>> there is a distinction between "This file used to be called A and at one
>>> point was renamed to B which is the name we see today" and "Some time ago
>>> somebody created a file B with the same contents as A and then removed A
>>> at the same time"), "copy" would not make much sense.  What identity does
>>> a new file B gets when you create it by copying from A?
>> What I want is to signify something like: "This code was obtained from
>> that in file A."
>
> I think that is what exactly "blame -C -C" gives you.

Maybe Mikhail wanted to say that if there's a git-mv as a shortcut for
  "cp old new ; rm old; add new"
then there should be a git-cp as a shortcut for
  "cp old new; add new"

Just for convenience (and symmetry with git-mv).

He did write:

> "copy" -- of an individual file -- makes just as much sense as "move" (rename).

-- 
Piotr Krukowiecki