How to work with (sub)directory renames in Git?

Question

I\'m looking at using Git for local developer VCS support (this is for multi-diciplinary development).

Previous practice was that the top level directory would be r

Answer 1

On the command-line, you'd rename a file or directory with git mv. Your GUI should have an option for this.

Answer 2

Git doesn't track renames, it retrospectively determines them as part of the log and show commands. You don't ever have to explicitly rename/move a file or directory using the git commands.

Renames are determined by a difference threshold, if there's been an addition and a deletion of a file and the content is sufficiently similar, then git will consider it a rename/move.

If you rename your directory outside of git, then do a git status, you'll see it's picked them up as a deletion. Now add them both to your index (git add -A will do it), you should now see it sees them as a rename.