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git log -- <old path> not working

DISCUSSION Ville Syrjälä 2 participants 2 messages Jun 15, 2020 – Jun 17, 2020

lore
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lore
#0 lore raw

Hi,

Just ran into a strange case with the Linux kernel repo when trying to look up the history for a file that was later renamed.

$ git log -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
-> nothing
$ git log --follow -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
$ git log --full-history -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
-> works

First time I've seen this fail. Expected behaviour for some reason, or a bug?

$ git --version 
git version 2.26.2
Signature · 2 lines
Ville Syrjälä
Intel
#1 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Ville Syrjälä
$ git log -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
-> nothing
$ git log --follow -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
$ git log --full-history -- drivers/acpi/configfs.c
-> works

First time I've seen this fail. Expected behaviour for some reason, or a bug?

Expected.

In a history is branchy and mergy,

    ---O---o---o---o---o---M---x
        \                 /
         o---A---o---B---o

where A, B and possibly M made changes to PATH,

    $ git log X -- PATH

may show nothing if the PATH at O and M are identical. This is described in "History Simplification" section of "git log --help"