= Search changes to a filename pattern in Git history
:categories: git

:yet:     link:../../08/14/browse-git.html
:another: link:../../08/16/git-search.html
:entry:   link:../../08/28/grep-online.html

This is {yet}[yet] {another}[another] {entry}["search in Git"] TIL entry.  You
could say that Git has a unintuitive CLI, or that is it very powerful.

I wanted to search for an old file that I new that was in the history of the
repository, but was deleted some time ago.  So I didn't really remember the
name, only bits of it.

I immediately went to the list of TILs I had written on searching in Git, but it
wasn't readily obvious how to do it, so here it goes:

[source,shell]
----
git log -- *pattern*
----

You could add globs before the pattern to match things on any directory, and add
our `-p` friend to promptly see the diffs:

[source,shell]
----
git log -p -- **/*pattern*
----