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Last active July 6, 2018 15:04
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Moving files with git read-tree to preserve history
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preserving-history.md

Did you know...

...that git lets you move and rename whole directories while preserving the git history of those files?

If you run

git read-tree --prefix=$NEW_PATH -u master:$OLD_PATH
rm -rf $OLD_PATH
# ...you probably want to change some imports...
git commit -m $MESSAGE

that will move the directory tree to the new location, and, when you commit, it'll preserve this history of those files.

Things that still work:

  • git blame
  • git merge with code that branched off before the renaming (incredible!)
    • you may have to set merge.renamelimit to something higher for this to work, i.e. git config merge.renamelimit 4000
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