Subject: Re: file rename causes history to disappear

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2006 19:11:48 +0200

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> There's a huge difference between "pathname" and "inode". And git operates 
> on _pathnames_, not on inodes. So when you give a pathname specifier, 
> that's _exactly_ what it is. It's a pathname specifier, _not_ an "inode" 
> specifier.
> 
> And pathnames don't change. They're just names for paths to possibly 
> _find_ a file/inode. They can't be "renamed". The data that is found 
> behind a pathname may be moved to _another_ pathname (and we call that a 
> rename), but that doesn't change the original pathname in any way, shape, 
> or form.

So if/when git would have --follow option to git-log and git-diff-*, it
would be rather --follow=<filename>, rather than --follow -- <paths>?

git-rev-list could then output hash with current set of <filenames>, which
were given <filename> at the beginning, i.e.
  <hash> -- <filename> [<filename>...]
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git