Currently git-blame supports only ordinary files (blobs). If you try to use git-blame on directory, it errors-out with a bit cryptic error message: $ git blame Documentation fatal: unsupported file type Documentation Meanwhile some git web interface (e.g. GitHub and Gitorious), most probably following web interfaces for file-based VCS like ViewVC for CVS and Subversion, provide kind of "tree blame" view as default view for directory contents. It means that for each element (entry) in given directory it shows 'last changed' info, namely author, date and summary of commit that changed given entry to current version. I don't know what algorithm they use to generate this info (well, I could find out in the case of Gitorious... if I read Ruby ;-)), but I suspect that they might a bit inefficient algorithm to find such info. Some time ago I tried to add such 'tree_blame' view to gitweb: you can check the result in the 'gitweb/tree_blame' branch in my git/jnareb-git.git repository at repo.or.cz: http://repo.or.cz/w/git/jnareb-git.git?a=commitdiff;h=gitweb/tree_blame It would be nice if "git blame <directory>" would give us required information; for tools such like GitHub, Gitorious or gitweb one could use '--porcelain' or '--incremental' output. Unfortunately I don't know this part of code good enough to write it easily myself. I would think that it wouldn't be too hard to code it; certainly easier than git-blame for ordinary files. I think that ordinary git-blame output for trees (directories) could mimic "ls -l" output format as far as possible, i.e. when currently $ git ls-tree --abbrev v1.6.3.3 generates the following output: ... 100644 blob e57630e walker.c 100644 blob 8a149e1 walker.h 100644 blob 7eb3218 wrapper.c 100644 blob 4c29255 write_or_die.c 100644 blob 819c797 ws.c 100644 blob 1b6df45 wt-status.c 100644 blob 78add09 wt-status.h 100644 blob b9b0db8 xdiff-interface.c 100644 blob 7352b9a xdiff-interface.h 040000 tree ef5d413 xdiff then $ git blame --abbrev v1.6.3.3 -- . would generate 100644 blob e57630e ba19a80 Junio C Hamano Feb 10 17:42 walker.c 100644 blob 8a149e1 c13b263 Daniel Barkalow Apr 26 2008 walker.h 100644 blob 7eb3218 fc71db3 Alex Riesen Apr 29 23:21 wrapper.c 100644 blob 4c29255 559e840 Junio C Hamano Jul 20 2008 write_or_die.c 100644 blob 819c797 a437900 Junio C Hamano Jun 21 02:35 ws.c 100644 blob 1b6df45 2af202b Linus Torvalds Jun 18 10:28 wt-status.c 100644 blob 78add09 6c2ce04 Marius Storm-Olsen Jun 5 2008 wt-status.h 100644 blob b9b0db8 eb3a9dd Benjamin Kramer Mar 7 21:02 xdiff-interface.c 100644 blob 7352b9a 86295bb Rene Scharfe Oct 25 2008 xdiff-interface.h 040000 tree ef5d413 5719db9 Charles Bailey May 25 01:21 xdiff/ or something like that. Date doesn't have to be in this strange format used by 'ls'. Also instead of name we can use username part of email, or just email; OTOH git-blame uses above format for author. The porcelain / incremental output format for "git blame <directory>" wouldn't need to be changed much from "git blame <file>"; line numbers do not matter though, as what is important is SHA-1 of entry (blob, tree or commit). $ git blame --porcelain v1.6.3.3 -- . The blame output for last two lines could look like the following: 86295bb6bac1482d29650d1f77f19d8e7a7cc2fe 7352b9a9c204c2b1d4ca9df5ce040fe22d6f521c author Rene Scharfe author-mail <rene.scharfe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> author-time 1224941475 author-tz +0200 committer Junio C Hamano committer-mail <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> committer-time 1224961771 committer-tz -0700 summary add xdi_diff_hunks() for callers that only need hunk lengths filename xdiff-interface.h 100644 blob 7352b9a9c204c2b1d4ca9df5ce040fe22d6f521c xdiff-interface.h 5719db91ce5915ee07c50f1afdc94fe34e91529f ef5d413237b3a390007fba56671b00d7c371ae1e author Charles Bailey author-mail <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> author-time 1243210874 author-tz +0100 committer Junio C Hamano committer-mail <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> committer-time 1243234594 committer-tz -0700 summary add xdi_diff_hunks() for callers that only need hunk lengths filename xdiff 040000 tree ef5d413237b3a390007fba56671b00d7c371ae1e xdiff What do you think about adding such feature? It either could use infrastructure for better '--follow' implementation, or lead to better implementation of '--follow' option (which currently as it is now works only for simplest cases). Probably. -- Jakub Narebski Poland -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html