Is there a simple Git command to determine the "creation date" of a file in a repository, i.e. the date it was first added?
It would be best if it can determine this even through file renames/moves. I'd like it to be a computer-readable one-line output; it may be that I haven't figured out the correct git log <fname> options to do this.
git log --follow --format=%ad --date default <FILE> | tail -1
With this command you can out all date about this file and extract the last
The option %ad shows the date in the format specified by the --date setting, one of relative, local, iso, iso-strict, rfc, short, raw, human, unix, format:<strftime-string>, default.
--follow to follow the log through renames as the OP asked. Also good practice to add -- before the filename just in case it clashes with an option or ref name.
git from Python, I was hoping for a command that doesn't require piping. I suppose I can just get the final line with Python, though. Any thoughts? Thanks!
git log --follow --format=%aD --reverse -- <fname> | head -1 (so, you don't need to read the all lines in Python, just the first one)
%aD vs %ct)?The native solution:
git log --diff-filter=A --follow --format=%aD -1 -- <fname>
It gives the last "creation date" of a file in a repository, and does it regardless of file renames/moves.
-1 is synonym to --max-count=1 and it limits the number of commits to output (to be not more than one in our case).
This limit is needed since a file can be added more than once. For example, it can be added, then removed, then added again. In such case --diff-filter=A will produce several lines for this file.
To get the first creation date in the first line we should use --reverse option without limitation (since limit is applied before ordering).
git log --diff-filter=A --follow --format=%aI --reverse -- <fname> | head -1
%aI gives author date in the strict ISO 8601 format (e.g. 2009-06-03T07:08:51-07:00).
But this command doesn't work properly due to the known bug in Git (see "--follow is ignored when used with --reverse" conversation in git maillist). So, we are forced to use some work around for awhile to get the first creation date. E.g.:
git log --diff-filter=A --follow --format=%aI -- <fname> | tail -1
-c pager.log=false: git -c pager.log=false log --diff-filter=A --follow --format=%aD -1 -- <fname>.
--no-pager options, so you can leave off the | tail -1 (which also makes it easier to work with xargs)
--diff-filter=A --follow would yield no output. This seems to be files where the latest commit had a merge conflict.