Re: finding deleted file names

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 3, 2008, 09:20 UTC
Message-ID: <m3hcb7fho7.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <93c3eada0807021701m13b7adddv51537f4cf9d52533@mail.gmail.com>

"Geoff Russell" <geoffrey.russell@gmail.com> writes:

> git diff --diff-filter=D --name-only HEAD@{'7 days ago'}

What did you want to find here?

> finds files deleted during the last 7 days, but if my repository is
> only 6 days old I get a fatal error.
> 
> fatal: bad object HEAD@{7 days ago}

First, which version of git do you use? Because with git version 1.5.6.1 I get:

  1000:[master!git]$ git diff --diff-filter=D --name-only HEAD@{'10 years ago'}
  warning: Log for 'HEAD' only goes back to Fri, 4 Apr 2008 15:28:53 +0200.
  Documentation/core-tutorial.txt
  [...]

Second, [<ref>]@{<date>} refers to _local_ history of where _branch tip_ pointed in your repository, and is purely local information retrieved from reflogs (which gets pruned / expired). To refer to (find) commits by commit creation date, use --since=<date>/--after=<date> or --until=<date>/ /--before=<date>. There was even lately added information to git documentation about difference bwetween [<ref>]@{<date>} and --before=<date> and when to use one or the other.

> Is there something that says "since repository creation", ie., go back as far
> as possible, but no further? Is there a symbolic name for the initial commit?

Because git allows joining two repositories into one (either union of their top directories, or one put into subdirectory in other using so called 'subtree' merge strategy) there can be more than one "root" (parentless) commit. In git repository there are 7 root commits, not counting "disjoint" branches like 'html', 'man' and 'todo' which share no history and doesn't join with mainline history.

They are: git-p4 (Perforce importer), git-gui, gitweb, gitk, git mail tools, git,... and something strange (4e00220243).

 $ git rev-list --parents --branches --not html man todo | grep -v -e ' '

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git