title: How to REALLY show logs of renamed files with git
body: <p>I'm relatively new to Git. I used <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion" rel="noreferrer">Subversion</a> (SVN) before.</p>
  <p>I noticed that most of the graphical Git front-ends and IDE plugins don't seem to be able to display the history of a file if the file has been renamed. When I use</p>
  <pre><code>git log --follow
  </code></pre>
  <p>on the command line, I can see the whole log across renames.</p>
  <p><a href="http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/Git-log-can-not-show-history-before-rename-td2244341.html#a2246019" rel="noreferrer">According to Linus Torvalds</a> (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110113233428/http://kerneltrap.org:80/mailarchive/git/2009/1/30/4856404" rel="noreferrer">alternative link</a>) the <code>--follow</code> switch is a &quot;SVN noob&quot; pleaser; serious Git users don't use it:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>--follow is a total hack, meant to just satisfy ex-SVN users who never
  knew anything about things like
  parenthood or nice revision graphs
  anyway.</p>
  <p>It's not totally fundamental, but the
  current implementation of &quot;--follow&quot;
  is really a quick preprocessing thing
  bolted onto the revision walking
  logic, rather than being anything
  really integral.</p>
  <p>It literally was designed as a &quot;SVN
  noob&quot; pleaser, not as a &quot;real git
  functionality&quot; thing. The idea was
  that you'd get away from the (broken)
  mindset of thinking that renames
  matter in the big picture.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>How do the hardcore Git users get the history of a file when it was renamed? What is the 'real' way to do this?</p>