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From: Jeremy Morton <admin@game-point.net>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Proposal: tell git a file has been renamed
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2023 19:01:45 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8fe188a9-c01f-9fb5-5877-8ff508094b22@game-point.net> (raw)

Yes, I know Linus specifically doesn't store file rename info in Git. 
The trouble is, every now and then, I'll come across a situation where 
Git doesn't successfully detect that I've renamed a file because I'm 
doing something like renaming a class at the same time.  So I'll have 
a file OldClassNameTests.cs and a NewClassNameTests.cs but a bunch of 
lines in that file have also changed from OldClassName.DoThing() to 
NewClassName.DoThing().  I can clearly see that this is a rename, but 
Git sees enough changed content that it doesn't realize it, and puts 
it in as a delete/add, losing the content history.

The standard answer for this is to rename the file in one commit, then 
make the changes.  That's fine if you know ahead of time you'll want 
to do this.  However it's a total PITA if you have a bunch of changes 
and you realize that a rename has caused this problem.  You now have 
to back out your changes to the renamed file, add the rename, commit 
it, then re-apply the changes.

Could a command be added to git that means you tell Git that counts as 
a file rename?  Git would add a marker to the staging area that the 
file has been renamed, and upon commit, would first generate an 
additional commit for each rename before generating the main commit, 
ensuring the rename operation counts as an actual rename, and the 
content's history is maintained.

-- 
Best regards,
Jeremy Morton (Jez)

             reply	other threads:[~2023-04-22 18:40 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-04-22 18:01 Jeremy Morton [this message]
2023-04-22 18:54 ` Proposal: tell git a file has been renamed rsbecker
2023-04-22 19:44   ` Jeremy Morton
2023-04-22 19:47     ` rsbecker
2023-04-22 19:54       ` Jeremy Morton
2023-04-22 22:09         ` rsbecker
2023-04-23  9:38           ` Erik Cervin Edin
2023-04-23 21:01 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2023-04-24  1:43 ` Chris Torek
2023-04-24 10:10   ` Jeremy Morton
2023-04-24 10:24     ` Chris Torek
2023-04-24 10:49     ` Erik Cervin Edin
2023-04-24 11:17       ` Jeremy Morton
2023-04-24 14:00         ` Erik Cervin Edin
2023-04-24 14:42           ` Jeremy Morton
2023-04-24 19:25           ` Felipe Contreras
2023-04-24 19:44             ` Jacob Keller
2023-04-24 20:00               ` Felipe Contreras
2023-04-26 19:08             ` Jacob Keller
2023-04-26 20:39               ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-11 13:44                 ` Erik Cervin Edin
2023-04-24 18:26 ` Junio C Hamano
2023-04-24 19:41 ` Junio C Hamano
2023-04-24 20:05   ` Jeremy Morton

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