Subject: RE: Proposal: tell git a file has been renamed

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2023 14:54:55 -0400

On Saturday, April 22, 2023 2:02 PM, Jeremy Morton wrote:
>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.

Would git mv work in your situation? You can stage changes to the original file, then use git mv. Or use git mv first. The rename shows as staged in any event.
--Randall