Is it possible to rename a git file after doing a regular mv?

Question

I've renamed a few files in my git repo, but I forgot to use git mv to rename those files. I'd like to make my commit reflect the renamed files, instead of showing a deletion and an addition to the repo. Is it possible to do something like that?

Or would I have to create a kind of macro that uses mv to move the file back to the original name, and then git mv to rename it once again, like so:

function fixmv() { mv $2 $1 && git mv $1 $2 }

If there is a built-in way to do this using git, I'd love to hear.

Answer 1

About three years ago, I wrotea script to do this — git-mv-after , to be invoked as git mv-after a la hg mv --after —but all you really have to do is run git add old-name new-name .

(My script is extra-fancy as it does a bunch of checks to make sure that the rename is safe.)

I do think git mv should include a --after flag, so that Git isn't deliberately dumber than Mercurial here. :-) But it is pretty minor.

Answer 2

Yes; the easy way is to run git add new-name and git rm --cached old-name . git doesn't track renames specifically; they're just a deletion from one name and an add of the same content at a new name.
git rm --cached tells it not to complain about the fact that the file you're asking it to remove doesn't exist.