git cherry-pick with target file renamed

Question

I have two branches for different versions - one for current development and another is long-time support several years old. As a consequence they differ significantly. I ha

Answer 1

The cherry-pick command is using the same merge strategies as the merge command. The default recursive merge strategy is able to detect renames under normal circumstances, but it can fail if the files have diverged too much like in this case.

Apart from the low level index hacking outlined in the other answer, it might be possible to make it work simply by fiddling with the strategy options, for example increase the threshold for considering a similar file to be a renamed version (default is 50%):

git cherry-pick -Xrename-threshold=20% 0123sourcecommithash

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Otherwise you could also always do it the manual way, i.e.

git format-patch 0123sourcecommithash -1

Then edit the created 0001-Commit-message-here.patch to change the file path and apply again on the target branch:

git am 0001-Commit-message-here.patch

It will retain all original commit messages, author names, dates etc. and might work as an easy one shot solution.

Answer 2

Remembered, where I have seen something similar. It was here. Linked script helps as well.

With the script you might do it with one-liner:

$ git merge-associate Old/Path/Original.txt :1:New/Path/Renamed.txt :3:New/Path/Renamed.txt

Same as if git merge-file supported :stage:filepath syntax without doing all the fuss around git show :1:New/Path/Renamed.txt > 1.txt; git show :3:New/Path/Renamed.txt > 3.txt described in Git FAQ.