How to make git mark a deleted and a new file as a file move?

Git will automatically detect the move/rename if your modification is not too severe. Just git add the new file, and git rm the old file. git status will then show whether it has detected the rename.

additionally, for moves around directories, you may need to:

1. cd to the top of that directory structure.
2. Run git add -A .
3. Run git status to verify that the "new file" is now a "renamed" file

If git status still shows "new file" and not "renamed" you need to follow Hank Gay’s advice and do the move and modify in two separate commits.

Do the move and the modify in separate commits.

git diff -M or git log -M should automatically detect such changes as a rename with minor changes as long as they indeed are. If your minor changes are not minor, you can reduce the similarity threashold, e.g.

$ git log -M20 -p --stat

to reduce it from the default 50% to 20%.

It's all a perceptual thing. Git is generally rather good at recognising moves, because GIT is a content tracker

All that really depends is how your "stat" displays it. The only difference here is the -M flag.

git log --stat -M

commit 9c034a76d394352134ee2f4ede8a209ebec96288
Author: Kent Fredric
Date:   Fri Jan 9 22:13:51 2009 +1300


        Category Restructure

     lib/Gentoo/Repository.pm                |   10 +++++-----
     lib/Gentoo/{ => Repository}/Base.pm     |    2 +-
     lib/Gentoo/{ => Repository}/Category.pm |   12 ++++++------
     lib/Gentoo/{ => Repository}/Package.pm  |   10 +++++-----
     lib/Gentoo/{ => Repository}/Types.pm    |   10 +++++-----
     5 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)

git log --stat

commit 9c034a76d394352134ee2f4ede8a209ebec96288
Author: Kent Fredric
Date:   Fri Jan 9 22:13:51 2009 +1300

    Category Restructure

 lib/Gentoo/Base.pm                |   36 ------------------------
 lib/Gentoo/Category.pm            |   51 ----------------------------------
 lib/Gentoo/Package.pm             |   41 ---------------------------
 lib/Gentoo/Repository.pm          |   10 +++---
 lib/Gentoo/Repository/Base.pm     |   36 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 lib/Gentoo/Repository/Category.pm |   51 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 lib/Gentoo/Repository/Package.pm  |   41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 lib/Gentoo/Repository/Types.pm    |   55 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 lib/Gentoo/Types.pm               |   55 -------------------------------------
 9 files changed, 188 insertions(+), 188 deletions(-)

git help log

   -M
       Detect renames.

   -C
       Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder.

Or you coud try the answer to this question here by Amber! To quote it again:

First, cancel your staged add for the manually moved file:

$ git reset path/to/newfile
$ mv path/to/newfile path/to/oldfile

Then, use Git to move the file:

$ git mv path/to/oldfile path/to/newfile

Of course, if you already committed the manual move, you may want to reset to the revision before the move instead, and then simply git mv from there.

The other answers already cover that you can simply git add NEW && git rm OLD in order to make git recognize the move.

However, if you have already modified the file in the working directory, the add+rm approach will add the modifications to the index, which may be undesired in some cases (e.g. in case of substantial modifications, Git might not recognize anymore that it is a file rename).

Let's assume you want to add the rename to the index, but not any modifications. The obvious way to achieve this, is to do a back and forth rename mv NEW OLD && git mv OLD NEW.

But there is also a (slightly more complicated) way to do this directly in the index without renaming the file in the working tree:

info=$(git ls-files -s -- "OLD" | cut -d' ' -f-2 | tr ' ' ,)
git update-index --add --cacheinfo "$info,NEW" &&
  git rm --cached "$old"

This can also be put as an alias in your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    mv-index = "!f() { \
      old=\"$1\"; \
      new=\"$2\"; \
      info=$(git ls-files -s -- \"$old\" | cut -d' ' -f-2 | tr ' ' ,); \
      git update-index --add --cacheinfo \"$info,$new\" && \
      git rm --cached \"$old\"; \
    }; f"

The way I understand this question is "How to make git recognize a deletion of an old file and creation of a new file as a file move".

Yes in the working directory once you delete an old file and inserted an old file, git status will say "deleted: old_file" and "Untracked files: ... new_file"

But in the staging index/level once you add and remove file using git it will be recognized as a file move. To do so, assuming you have done the deletion and creation using your Operation System, give the following commands:

git add new_file
git rm old_file

If the contents of the file are 50% or more similar, running git status command should give you:

renamed: old_file -> new_file