How to make github follow directory history after renames?

Question

Once a directory is renamed, \"git log\" no longer shows its history, unless you force it to, by using \"git log --follow\".

Is there a way to force the \"history\"

Answer 1

This was requested in 2009 (Request 129), and then in 2010 (Request 897):

I like this.
There could be other issues preventing us from plopping the --follow argument in.
I'll take a look and let you know.

... and then nothing for now.

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Note: Git 2.6+ (Q3 2015) will propose that in command line: see "Why does git log not default to git log --follow?"

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Note: Git 2.6.0 has been released and includes this feature. Following path changes in the log command can be enabled by setting the log.follow config option to true as in:

git config log.follow true

Answer 2

I wrote a chrome extension to enable this. Source on github.

Answer 3

I've sent a mail to support@github.com (salutations removed):

Will "git --follow" functionality ever be implemented on Github? If yes, where can I track its progress?

(By "git --follow", I mean a way to easily see the object revisions before a rename. Currently, when an item is renamed, Github doesn't offer an easy way to display the directory / file history.)

Response:

> Will "git --follow" functionality ever be implemented on Github? If yes, where can I track its progress?

This is something a few other users have requested as well -- we might add it in the future. We currently don't have a public issue tracker, but I'll put another +1 next to it on the Feature Request List™ for the team to see.

So, "git --follow" is unfortunately not supported yet.

To get such functionality in the meantime, I guess you could write a user script that looks up the hash of the parent object, (recursively) look up its history and render the result.