On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 1:41 PM, Harry Putnam <reader@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Stefan Beller <sbeller@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > [...] > >> Ah. Sorry for confusing even more. >> By pointing out the options for git-diff, I just wanted to point out that >> such a mechanism ("rename/copy detection") exists. > > > [...] > >>> What am I missing? >>> >> >> https://www.reddit.com/r/git/comments/3ogkk1/beginner_disable_rename_detection/ >> >> "Rename detection is just GUI sugar". > > Thanks there is a nice full explanation at the cited url. > > What is still a bit puzzling is that in that same commit, there are > files that are true copies of each other, just in different locations, > But nothing pops up about them in a git commit. > The heuristic to find the renames/copies only looks at modified files to be fast(, the assumption is that each commit only touches few files, but the project consists of a lot of files). For that git-diff knows about '--find-copies-harder' that looks at all files even those not modified. This would point out the true copies, I would assume. I don't think we'd want to include the '--find-copies-harder' flag to status or commit, as it may take some time in large projects.