threads / discuss / 19775

Copying files and keeping the history

Subject: Copying files and keeping the history

## tl;dr

3 messages between Jun 11, 2009 and Jun 12, 2009.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

JörgenHägg· Jun 11, 2009, 13:20 UTC · lore

I have two completely different git repositories, A and B.

I want to move a file from repo A to B without losing the files history. That is, I want the commit message and all other info from each commit where the file was included to generate new commits in repo B. (Yes, I know git manages content, not files. :-)

In other words, export a bunch of commits, filtering out the patches for the file and import these in another repo.

Sort of importing from cvs to git, only the source and destination are both git repositories.

I tried tailor from git to git, but that was probably not what tailor wanted to do. :-)

Is this somehow possible?

Sverre Rabbelier· Jun 11, 2009, 18:29 UTC · re: JörgenHägg · lore

Re: Copying files and keeping the history

Heya,

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 15:20, JörgenHägg<jorgen.hagg@axis.com> wrote:

> Is this somehow possible?

Try git filter-branch to get just the commits you want and nudge them to contain what you want (do this in a seperate branch/copy of repository A). When you're done, pull the branch into B and merge it. Instant win?

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

Avery Pennarun· Jun 12, 2009, 03:44 UTC · re: Sverre Rabbelier · lore

Re: Copying files and keeping the history

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Sverre Rabbelier<srabbelier@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 15:20, JörgenHägg<jorgen.hagg@axis.com> wrote:
>> Is this somehow possible?
>
> Try git filter-branch to get just the commits you want and nudge them
> to contain what you want (do this in a seperate branch/copy of
> repository A). When you're done, pull the branch into B and merge it.
> Instant win?

You could also consider 'git subtree' (http://github.com/apenwarr/git-subtree) to merge the other tree (including its history) in as a subdirectory.

Avery