How to split out pieces of a file while preserving git line history: The hard way with commit-tree

Raymond Chen

Last time, we looked at how to split a single file into multiple files while preserving line history. A related scenario is where you want to extract some pieces of a file into separate files, but leave some pieces behind.

Let’s use the same scratch repo we had last time. You can follow the same copy/paste script, or you can take your existing scratch repo and git reset --hard ready to get it back into its “ready to start experimenting” state.

First, we’re going to do things the hard (but more information-theoretically correct) way, and then we’ll develop a simpler alternative that gets the same result, though through some potentially-confusing intermediate steps.

Okay, to do things the hard way, we split out each file in its own branch.

git checkout -b f2f

git mv foods fruits
git commit --author="Greg <greg>" -m "create fruits from foods"

We start by renaming foods to fruits. This ensures that when git traces the history of the fruits file, it will follow the history back into the foods file.

Next, we split the fruits file back into two files: The fruits stay in the fruits file, and the rest go back into the foods file.

>foods echo celery
>>foods echo cheese
>>foods echo eggs
>>foods echo lettuce
>>foods echo milk
>>foods echo peas
git add foods

>fruits echo apple
>>fruits echo grape
>>fruits echo orange

git commit --author="Greg <greg>" -am "split fruits from foods"

git checkout -

Repeat for the other files you want to split out. Let’s say we also want to split out the veggies.

git checkout -b f2v

git mv foods veggies
git commit --author="Greg <greg>" -m "create veggies from foods"

>foods echo apple
>>foods echo cheese
>>foods echo eggs
>>foods echo grape
>>foods echo milk
>>foods echo orange
git add foods

>veggies echo celery
>>veggies echo lettuce
>>veggies echo peas

git commit --author="Greg <greg>" -am "split veggies from foods"

git checkout -

Then we octopus the branches together. However, the octopus will fail because the changes don’t merge cleanly, so we’ll have to do a manual octopus, like we did before.

>foods echo cheese
>>foods echo eggs
>>foods echo milk

>fruits echo apple
>>fruits echo grape
>>fruits echo orange

>veggies echo celery
>>veggies echo lettuce
>>veggies echo peas

git add foods fruits veggies
git write-tree

The git write-tree will emit a tree that represents the state of the index. We set up the index so that it contains the desired final state: The fruits have been put into fruits, the veggies into veggies, and the leftovers stay in foods.

Now to do the manual octopus merge.

git commit-tree 〈tree-hash〉 -p HEAD -p f2f -p f2v -m "split out fruits and veggies from foods"

The git commit-tree will print a hash. This is the commit that is the result of the octopus merge. We can fast-forward to it.

git merge --ff-only 〈commit-hash〉

Okay, let’s see what we ended up with.

git blame fruits

^e7a114d foods (Alice 2019-09-16 07:00:00 -0700 1) apple
86348be4 foods (Bob   2019-09-16 07:00:01 -0700 2) grape
34eb5bd1 foods (Carol 2019-09-16 07:00:02 -0700 3) orange

git blame veggies

^e7a114d foods (Alice 2019-09-16 07:00:00 -0700 1) celery
86348be4 foods (Bob   2019-09-16 07:00:01 -0700 2) lettuce
34eb5bd1 foods (Carol 2019-09-16 07:00:02 -0700 3) peas

git blame foods

^e7a114d (Alice 2019-09-16 07:00:00 -0700 1) cheese
86348be4 (Bob   2019-09-16 07:00:01 -0700 2) eggs
34eb5bd1 (Carol 2019-09-16 07:00:02 -0700 3) milk

Next time, we’ll look at how to do this the easy way.

5 comments

Discussion is closed. Login to edit/delete existing comments.

  • Simon Clarkstone 0

    I am intrigued to know what the “easy way” is. I am going to guess it’ll be introducing an extra move commit to let you use yesterday’s solution.

  • Pierre Baillargeon 0

    Everything would so much simpler if you could just tell git that a new file comes from an existing file when you add it. Something like this hypothetical command-line switch:

    git add veggies –comes-from foods

    (Side note: it’s the first time I see someone place the file redirection at the start of the line. In fact, before reading these entries, I would have assumed the command had to be first. Is this the new cool way of doing things?)

    • Raymond ChenMicrosoft employee 0

      (1) Sure, you could “tell git”, but then git would have to remember it somewhere. Other source control systems have auxiliary databases for recording this information, but git does not. (2) Redirection at the start of the line solves many problems, like spurious trailing spaces and adverse interaction with lines that end in digits.

  • Hallvard Furuseth 0

    Very cool tip. You don’t need write-tree though: Merge strategy “ours” accepts many branches. Add –no-commit (git merge -s ours –no-commit), modify the tree and index as desired, then commit.
    Or instead of commit, use git merge –continue which will catch you if you screwed up and would commit a non-merge.
    Or drop the –no-commit, instead modify the files afterwards and then fix the merge-commit with ‘git commit –amend’.

    [Edit: Duh, the code I first gave was for the wrong post. Typical. Deleted the code for now. Busy.]

  • Hallvard Furuseth 0

    I think your trick is wrong: Greg is to blame for re-adding the file in the branches. git does blame him if you reorder the ‘git commit-tree’ parents:
    git commit-tree … -p f2f -p f2v -p HEAD …
    IIRC the first parent in a merge is not considered special, so the trick just “happens to work”.

    Instead construct a merge from the parent commit and the rename-commits. That way each file only has one history:

    # First, rewind the branches to the ‘rename’ commits:
    git branch -f f2v f2v~
    git branch -f f2f f2f~

    git checkout -b new-trick ready
    # Copy the files from the commits to be merged
    git checkout f2f — .
    git checkout f2v — .
    git status

    # Create the merge as before. Put HEAD last, to show that it works:
    git merge –ff-only $(
    git commit-tree $(git write-tree) -p f2f -p f2v -p HEAD -m “copy foods to fruits and veggies”
    )

    Now we can modify the files in a regular commit.

Feedback usabilla icon