Losing history when moving files with git

May 9, 2022

After reading an answer to a question on here on moving files tracked by git, the history should not be impacted if you move a file that git is tracking.
However that is not my experience, so what am I doing wrong? Here is my console log

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>mkdir archive
    
C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 7C59-18A2

 Directory of C:\scripts\Python\Cyren

08-May-22  22:44    <DIR>          .
08-May-22  22:44    <DIR>          ..
08-May-22  22:43    <DIR>          archive
31-Mar-22  19:11             1,878 categories.csv
31-Mar-22  17:57             1,886 categories.txt
30-Mar-22  21:19            14,557 categories.xlsx
29-Apr-22  16:23            19,274 CyrenDopplerAPI.py
06-May-22  12:35            14,585 CyrenDopplerEnv.py
29-Apr-22  16:16            17,672 CyrenSample.py

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git log CyrenDopplerAPI.py
commit 4f440a2c132053ebe9c76a16e90abc1dd845d262
Author: Siggi@Reba <siggi@supergeek.us>
Date:   Thu May 5 15:38:58 2022 +0000

    rename

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git mv CyrenDopplerAPI.py archive

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 7C59-18A2

 Directory of C:\scripts\Python\Cyren

08-May-22  22:48    <DIR>          .
08-May-22  22:48    <DIR>          ..
08-May-22  22:48    <DIR>          archive
31-Mar-22  19:11             1,878 categories.csv
31-Mar-22  17:57             1,886 categories.txt
30-Mar-22  21:19            14,557 categories.xlsx
06-May-22  12:35            14,585 CyrenDopplerEnv.py
05-May-22  18:24               109 Infile.txt
06-May-22  12:35    <DIR>          Logs
               5 File(s)         33,015 bytes
               4 Dir(s)  484,630,781,952 bytes free

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
        renamed:    CyrenDopplerAPI.py -> archive/CyrenDopplerAPI.py
        renamed:    CyrenSample.py -> archive/CyrenSample.py
C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git commit -m "cleanup and archiving"
[master 1240039] cleanup and archiving
 2 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 rename Cyren/{ => archive}/CyrenDopplerAPI.py (100%)
 rename Cyren/{ => archive}/CyrenSample.py (100%)

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git status
On branch master
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

nothing to commit, working tree clean

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git push
Enumerating objects: 6, done.
Counting objects: 100% (6/6), done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 454 bytes | 454.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 4 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), completed with 2 local objects.
To https://github.com/siggib007/python.git
   e85489f..1240039  master -> master

C:\scripts\Python\Cyren>git log archive\CyrenDopplerAPI.py
commit 1240039a7e93993027f22979908ee4a9837a5474 (HEAD -> master, origin/master)
Author: Siggi@Reba <siggi@supergeek.us>
Date:   Sun May 8 22:49:03 2022 +0000

    cleanup and archiving

The git log isn’t showing anything before the move. I take that to mean that it was erased.

BTW Here is the link the corrensponding github repo https://github.com/siggib007/python/tree/master/Cyren

Also this is not an isolated incident, this is consolelog from me reproducing an issue I’ve noticed couple of times before.

>Solution :

Use git log --follow to track renames.

--follow
Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames (works only for a single file).

You can make this the default by setting the log.follow configuration option to true:

log.follow
If true, git log will act as if the --follow option was used when a single is given. This has the same limitations as --follow, i.e. it cannot be used to follow multiple files and does not work well on non-linear history.

To set it run: