Re: git log --follow doesn't follow a rename over a merge

From: James Blackburn <jamesblackburn@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 16, 2011, 18:21 UTC
Message-ID: <BANLkTimmKnzD7LTApxzw5oTpvLU7oM0yjw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20110616173451.GB6584@sigill.intra.peff.net>

> Doesn't:
>  git log -- plugins/org.eclipse.dd.dsf.debug/src/org/eclipse/dd/dsf/debug/service/IBreakpoints.java
> do that?

Unfortunately that returuns no output.

If I add --follow, I get history: git log --follow --oneline -- plugins/org.eclipse.dd.dsf.debug/src/org/eclipse/dd/dsf/debug/service/IBreakpoints.java 10580b5 Updated copyright statements. ...

Where 10580 is a distant parent of c1e6da which was merged in to 5b47187.

On 16 June 2011 18:45, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Usually you would graft the tip of the old history to the root commit of
> the new history. So it's not a merge, but makes it look like a
> contiguous linear history near the graft. But that's only a
> per-repository thing. If you want to join two histories in the actual
> history graph, you would merge them; if one supersedes the other, then
> you would use the "ours" merge strategy to ignore the other side.

In this case the commit is a 'merge' commit as history looks like:

  2002 ---o----o-----o-----o-----X-----o-----o-----o--- 2011         (CDT)
                                     /
  2006 ---o----o-----o-----o--   (2009)                                  (DSF)

CDT has existed since 2002. In 2006, at X, DSF was committed onto HEAD of CDT. Basically wholesale apart from the path (Java package) change (+some minor changes to 'import's).

So I created a graft from the commit which made it appear from CDT onto the HEAD of a DSF as it was when the import happened. Which makes X have two parents.

Cheers, James