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javagitversion-controljboss

git log --follow including wrong commits

I was trying to get revisions of some files in this repository - https://github.com/wildfly/wildfly. I selected the file at this location to work with. However, I observed that extra revisions are being shown for this file.

  1. git log --follow --pretty=format:"%H" -- appclient/src/main/java/org/jboss/as/appclient/deployment/AppClientAttachments.java outputs
21c42698945b95423f8190983c026037b546800b 
e1cdd97efac2697f0c5d06dcaae2242ff42ed273
95695f79a99ceb09c934ad1eb8fd2fb6aa24f668                                                                                                      
a362f9f069f601e817851bf748ef39b9645dbdc0
4efa72403a27d7d43af1b4e20c302090262a34a9
e185b80348e43b96eb740337a6bf10859e941c65
f15c7d33dfed977592bfd8280f1de162098094a7
e5b791a896fcaa6698b217544fe4ed74c0fea8e4
6b4564be9b041ba985ba4d421de00b595464f811
beeb20330d46488fda930e7915f679bc3465478c
bbdf655522912d914a51a9fd7b9a001fb03fb50e
c92a75ae2dd5595d4b586f50c6c01e25bac25810
52e2173b1de17ed14c9231299f0a21a6d7458686
13fcc1306f618631ba5ed985a0935adf0dd5b87c
36f30a498ad6201adca9bb44b271b09b2e86fa74
e6fe7b2f3b87a14cf9c7175f9dc80370bcf22e31
3cc56d37d5c4902c4b772b0532a9bf2c5c9f3195
5d9581a327658ef5d58ab4cdd8b9dea4e25f5314
  1. To view the file at a specific commit, I ran the command - git show 21c4269:./appclient/src/main/java/org/jboss/as/appclient/deployment/AppClientAttachments.java. It is working for the 3 commits - (21c4269, e1cdd9, and 95695f7) but when I run it for a362f9f, I get this error:
fatal: Path 'appclient/src/main/java/org/jboss/as/appclient/deployment/AppClientAttachments.java' exists on disk, but not in 'a362f9f'.

Checking out to the particular commit (a362f9f) reveals that the file indeed does not exist. Then why is this commit being outputted when I run git log?

Solution

  • You included --follow in your git log command, which instructs git to detect renames, and follow the history of said file through renames.

    If you don't want that behavior, simply drop the --follow option.

    If you want that behavior : you will have to also understand what git log chose to follow as a rename within your repository.

    Add the extra option --name-status, git log will display extra information :

    $ git log --name-status --follow --pretty=format:"%H" -- my/file
21c42698945b95423f8190983c026037b546800b
M     my/file
e1cdd97efac2697f0c5d06dcaae2242ff42ed273
M     my/file
95695f79a99ceb09c934ad1eb8fd2fb6aa24f668
R95   previous/my/file -> my/file

# after that, you should inspect 'previous/my/file', not 'my/file'
a362f9f069f601e817851bf748ef39b9645dbdc0
M     previous/my/file
4efa72403a27d7d43af1b4e20c302090262a34a9
M     previous/my/file
...