move all files of current directory into subdirectory and maintain history

Question

How can I move all the files of my current directory into a new directory and retain the history.

I have tried:

git mv . old_app

But I

Answer 1

You need to enable Extended Globbing so you can use regular expressions.

If you're using bash shell type this shopt (shell option) command prior to executing the command featuring the glob:

$ shopt -s extglob

(you can also add this to your ~/.bash_profile if you don't want type this every time)

Then you can use the following syntax:

$ git mv ./!(exclude_me|exclude_me) ./destination_folder

For example if this is your folder structure:

root
├── aardvark
├── contrib
|   ├── folder1
|   └── folder2
├── custom
|   ├── folder1
|   └── folder2
├── elephant
├── hippopotamus
└── zebra

And you run the following in the root directory:

$ shopt -s extglob
$ git mv ./!(custom|contrib) ./contrib

You'll end up with this:

root
├── contrib
|   ├── aardvark
|   ├── elephant
|   ├── folder1
|   ├── folder2
|   ├── hippopotamus
|   └── zebra
└── custom
    ├── folder1
    └── folder2

Add the -n flag if you want to do a test run and make sure the command will execute without errors:

$ git mv -n ./!(exclude_me|exclude_me) ./destination_folder

Add the -k flag to include files not under version control:

$ git mv -k ./!(exclude_me|exclude_me) ./destination_folder

---

If using zsh shell, enable extended globbing in the following way and use ^ to negate the pattern.

$ setopt extendedglob
$ git mv ^(exclude_me|exclude_me) ./destination_folder
$ git mv ^exclude_me ./destination_folder