_tils/2020-10-11-search-changes-to-a-filename-pattern-in-git-history.md


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---
title: Search changes to a filename pattern in Git history
date: 2020-10-11
layout: post
lang: en
ref: search-changes-to-a-filename-pattern-in-git-history.md
---

This is [yet][git-til-1] [another][git-til-2] ["search in Git"][git-til-3] 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:

```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:

```shell
git log -p -- **/*pattern*
```

[git-til-1]: {% link _tils/2020-08-14-browse-a-git-repository-at-a-specific-commit.md %}
[git-til-2]: {% link _tils/2020-08-16-search-in-git.md %}
[git-til-3]: {% link _tils/2020-08-28-grep-online-repositories.md %}