# Git log can not show history before rename 9 messages from 2009-01-30 to 2009-01-31. Participants: Frank Li, Santi Béjar, Jakub Narebski, Linus Torvalds, Thomas Rast, Jeff King. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/17456 ## Frank Li, 2009-01-30 11:23 Subject: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: <1976ea660901300323n384d3650s3bb5a575accb65d1@mail.gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1976ea660901300323n384d3650s3bb5a575accb65d1%40mail.gmail.com ``` mkdir tt3 cd tt3 git init-db touch a.c git add a.c git commit -a -m "test1" git mv a.c b.c git commit -a -m "rename" modify b.c git commit -a -m "test2" git log -C -M -- b.c ======================================== commit 8d55ed63d2048d41bde8c34dafc52c6a965d61ed Author: Frank Li Date: Fri Jan 30 19:20:10 2009 +0800 test2 commit af0214f7d32cf97fda2743e7d906305e6de2e9a2 Author: Frank Li Date: Fri Jan 30 19:19:15 2009 +0800 rename ========================================= I can't get history before rename. ``` ## Santi Béjar, 2009-01-30 11:29 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/adf1fd3d0901300329y53e46d91xda75799ce1244ddd%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <1976ea660901300323n384d3650s3bb5a575accb65d1@mail.gmail.com> ``` 2009/1/30 Frank Li : > mkdir tt3 > cd tt3 > git init-db "git init" > touch a.c > git add a.c > git commit -a -m "test1" > > git mv a.c b.c > git commit -a -m "rename" > > modify b.c > git commit -a -m "test2" > > git log -C -M -- b.c [...] > I can't get history before rename. You asked to restrict the search to the b.c path. You want: git log --follow -- b.c Man git-log: --follow Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames. HTH, Santi > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > ``` ## Jakub Narebski, 2009-01-30 12:25 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/m33af1x9od.fsf%40localhost.localdomain In-Reply-To: ``` Santi Béjar writes: > 2009/1/30 Frank Li : > > mkdir tt3 > > cd tt3 > > git init-db > > "git init" > > > touch a.c > > git add a.c > > git commit -a -m "test1" > > > > git mv a.c b.c > > git commit -a -m "rename" > > > > modify b.c > > git commit -a -m "test2" > > > > git log -C -M -- b.c > [...] > > I can't get history before rename. > > You asked to restrict the search to the b.c path. > > You want: > > git log --follow -- b.c > > Man git-log: > --follow > Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames. Or use $ git log -C -- b.c a.c (you don't need '-M' option, as '-C' is superset of it). Note that '--follow' works for simple histories, but (as it is quite new invention) doesn't work yet for all cases, like for example subtree merge or equivalent. -- Jakub Narebski Poland ShadeHawk on #git ``` ## Frank Li, 2009-01-30 12:29 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: <1976ea660901300429i6d9b3594m91222314c284d184@mail.gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1976ea660901300429i6d9b3594m91222314c284d184%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Does it conflict with --parents? When I use --follow and --parents together, parents can't rewrite. without --follow, parent can rewrite. 2009/1/30 Santi Béjar : > 2009/1/30 Frank Li : >> mkdir tt3 >> cd tt3 >> git init-db > > "git init" > >> touch a.c >> git add a.c >> git commit -a -m "test1" >> >> git mv a.c b.c >> git commit -a -m "rename" >> >> modify b.c >> git commit -a -m "test2" >> >> git log -C -M -- b.c > [...] >> I can't get history before rename. > > You asked to restrict the search to the b.c path. > > You want: > > git log --follow -- b.c > > Man git-log: > --follow > Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames. > > HTH, > Santi >> -- >> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in >> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org >> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html >> > ``` ## Santi Béjar, 2009-01-30 12:49 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/adf1fd3d0901300449x7f6a2f5bq920068b46994c92e%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <1976ea660901300429i6d9b3594m91222314c284d184@mail.gmail.com> ``` [Please, don't top post, and quote only what you are replying to] 2009/1/30 Frank Li : > Does it conflict with --parents? > When I use --follow and --parents together, parents can't rewrite. > without --follow, parent can rewrite. I think there are no obvious reasons to conflict and they could work together, but as Jakub just said, --follow is quite new and only works well with simple history and simple cases. Santi ``` ## Linus Torvalds, 2009-01-30 17:17 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.00.0901300910580.3150%40localhost.localdomain In-Reply-To: <1976ea660901300429i6d9b3594m91222314c284d184@mail.gmail.com> ``` On Fri, 30 Jan 2009, Frank Li wrote: > > Does it conflict with --parents? Yes. --follow and --parents do not play well together. That's simply because --follow is a total hack, meant to just satisfy ex-SVN users who never knew anything about things like parenthood or nice revision graphs anyway. It's not totally fundamental, but the current implementation of "--follow" is really a quick preprocessing thing bolted onto the revision walking logic, rather than beign anything really integral. If you want --follow to really work together with --parents (and to do the right thing wrt merges etc - different renames coming in through different branches), you'd really have to rewrite the whole --follow logic. One approach is to use --follow as the quick hack it is - and then when you see "oh, file X was renamed from file Y", and you want to see the nice full history, you go back to the native git model (which is not --follow), which is based on pathname pattherns, and then do gitk -- X Y to see the history of _both_ names, and now the rename will show up properly (and now you'll get proper parenthood because you're no longer using the hackish --follow thing). If somebody wants to do a more intelligent --follow, I can only applaud, but I'm personally not likely to look into it. Linus ``` ## Linus Torvalds, 2009-01-30 17:23 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.00.0901300918010.3150%40localhost.localdomain In-Reply-To: ``` On Fri, 30 Jan 2009, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > If somebody wants to do a more intelligent --follow, I can only applaud, > but I'm personally not likely to look into it. Side note: you can probably get a _limited_ form of parent rewriting on top of --follow by adding some more hacks. IOW, I think you can make --parents --follow work better in practice even with the hacky thing by adding some more hacks on top. But you'll never get the _true_ answer (ie get things right across renames in different branches) without totally ripping out the current --follow logic. Interestingly, I suspect that doing --follow "right" is really quite complicated, but one sign of doing it right would be to allow multiple files to be tracked at the same time. Because in a "correct" implementation of --follow you'd literally have to attach different filenames to different commits (rather than have one global filename that you follow and then switch for everybody when you see a rename), and also have the ability to track multiple files per commit when you reach the same commit under two filenames. I really never wanted the pain, and never cared enough for it, which is why --follow is such a hack. It literally was designed as a "SVN noob" pleaser, not as a "real git functionality" thing. The idea was that you'd get away from the (broken) mindset of thinking that renames matter in the big picture. Linus ``` ## Thomas Rast, 2009-01-30 21:52 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: <200901302252.18051.trast@student.ethz.ch> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/200901302252.18051.trast%40student.ethz.ch In-Reply-To: ``` Santi Béjar wrote: > 2009/1/30 Frank Li : > > Does it conflict with --parents? > > When I use --follow and --parents together, parents can't rewrite. > > without --follow, parent can rewrite. > > I think there are no obvious reasons to conflict and they could work > together, but as Jakub just said, --follow is quite new and only works > well with simple history and simple cases. You might find this useful: $ git config alias.renames !GIT_PAGER="grep -v '^$' | sort -u" git --paginate log --follow --name-only --pretty=format:"" -- Slow and hacky, but works nice enough in practice. The intended use case is like $ gitk --complicated-rev-options $(git renames git-svn.perl) -- Thomas Rast trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch ``` ## Jeff King, 2009-01-31 07:04 Subject: Re: Git log can not show history before rename Message-ID: <20090131070418.GB3033@coredump.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20090131070418.GB3033%40coredump.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: <200901302252.18051.trast@student.ethz.ch> ``` On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:52:13PM +0100, Thomas Rast wrote: > You might find this useful: > > $ git config alias.renames > !GIT_PAGER="grep -v '^$' | sort -u" git --paginate log --follow --name-only --pretty=format:"" -- > > Slow and hacky, but works nice enough in practice. The intended use > case is like > > $ gitk --complicated-rev-options $(git renames git-svn.perl) Related (but also slow and hacky :) ), it is sometimes nice to see not the whole history of a file, but all of the commits, in the usual log order, that ended up affecting the outcome of a set of content (so not any commits whose work was later overwritten). I posted a short script for it a while back: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/99278 -Peff ```