Pulling out a specific set of files from git history

Question

Hello thanks for reading.

While buiding a private application for a client, I developed a small utility alongside within the same repo to help with some server spoofing. Now I have reached a point where the maturity of this tool is very solid and I can see many uses for it outside in the general public.

I am interested in 'extracting' the full history of just the few files needed for this utility because I would like to show the history and length at which it evolved - that would be interested to me. However my biggest caveat is that none of the clients application code would be shared, since this is private. So I couldn't just delete that stuff and fork as anyone could just checkout an older commit before the deletion and have everything.

Is it possible to do this?

Possible duplicate of [Detach (move) subdirectory into separate Git repository](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/359424/detach-move-subdirectory-into-separate-git-repository) — bperson, Nov 06 '16 at 21:35
You're going to want to use `filter-branch`. [This answer might be helpful.](http://stackoverflow.com/a/24693985/4233593) — Jeff Puckett, Nov 07 '16 at 01:35
Thanks @JeffPuckettII - if you make an answer from this comment I will check it — stupidkid, Dec 06 '16 at 04:05

score -1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 07 '16 at 09:34

-1

I am interested in 'extracting' the full history of just the few files needed for this utility because I would like to show the history and length at which it evolved - that would be interested to me.

I use this git log --follow -- path/to/file to get the complete git history for a specific file.

Edit: With git log --follow -p -- path/to/file you can also show the diff for each commit.

answered Nov 07 '16 at 09:34

clinical

588
4
17

1

This is just a log, I'm looking to create a new repo – stupidkid Dec 06 '16 at 04:04

Pulling out a specific set of files from git history

1 Answers1