Re: Bug? Files are losing history after subtree merge

From: Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 2, 2013, 20:44 UTC
Message-ID: <CAN0XMOJqmia4uTvOTBk75FcidD2hn6NbWf6a5R5GXPk1iDz4gQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <vpqy56bjuen.fsf@anie.imag.fr>

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Thanks for explanation.
>> I knew the history of the repo is there, but the history of single files
>> (and the ability to look at it)
>
> There is no such thing as "single file history" in Git. Git knows about
> the history of the project, and knows which files were there at each
> commit. Then, some commands can walk through history following the
> history of a file. "git blame" is very good at it, and should work with
> subtree merges. "git log --follow" is a quick hack that nobody bothered
> to fix up to now (sadly).
>

Yeah From a user perspective there is a "single file history", isn't it? And in this case the history is gone. At least in the subtree case...

> You can use workarounds like
>
>   git log -- '*git-gui.sh'
>

"My" users are using gui tools, so there's sadly no chance to change the commands. I just wanted to mention the issue but I've worked around it so it's no problem anymore.

Show 8 quoted lines

> (from the toplevel), to view each commit that touched a file whose name
> ends with git-gui.sh. It won't follow actual renames, and may show false
> positive if you have several files with the same basename. But it may
> help.
>
> --
> Matthieu Moy
> http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/