Change file directory ?

[xmailla]

Hello,

I started hosting/managing my dotfiles with chezmoi. Quite simple for the moment since I just do not do anything crazy. I have a question though.

Say I did chezmoi add some/directory/file.rc and then, changed my mind to hold this file to say, $HOME.

What am I supposed to do if I want to keep the git commit history of this file and move the file to $HOME for next chezmoi apply call ?

So: is this just something like git mv + commit + chezmoi apply ? Something else ?

Thank you

[bradenhilton]

If I understand correctly, you want to know about how to move dotfile(s) from e.g. $HOME/A to $HOME/B. Is that correct?

I could be mistaken, as I don't really use .chezmoiremove, so proceed with caution and perhaps try it with a set of test dotfiles first, but I believe the recommended method is something like the following:

1. Move the dotfile(s) to the new path in your chezmoi source state (git mv should work here)
2. Add the old path as an entry in .chezmoiremove
3. Run chezmoi apply, which should remove the dotfile(s) from the old path from your $HOME, and apply the newly moved dotfile(s)
4. Commit and push the newly moved dotfile(s) as well as .chezmoiremove
5. Once you are certain that this change has propagated to all of your machines (by running chezmoi update on them, etc.), you can remove the entry from .chezmoiremove

A chezmoi mv (or similar) command has been requested in the past, but it's not quite as simple as moving the dotfile(s) to the new path in your source state. My understanding is that chezmoi has no memory of files that it used to manage, but no longer manages, meaning that chezmoi would just see the newly moved dotfile(s) as completely new targets to manage, and it would just see the old dotfile(s) as regular files that it does not manage (even though it used to manage them), so you would end up with the old dotfile(s) being orphaned, and the new dotfile(s) in addition to them.

The most that a chezmoi mv OLDPATH NEWPATH command could reasonably do is:

1. Move the dotfile(s) from OLDPATH to NEWPATH in your source state (again, possibly with git mv)
2. Create a .chezmoiremove entry for OLDPATH
3. Run chezmoi apply

These changes should also be committed and pushed if autoCommit and autoPush are enabled in your chezmoi config.

chezmoi can't reasonably know when this change has propagated to all of your machines, so it would not be able to remove the entry from .chezmoiremove that was added by the chezmoi mv command, this would still have to be done manually (or not at all, there may not be any harm in leaving it there if the path name is unique enough, but this is potentially destructive so can't really be considered safe to do as a default).

[xmailla]

git mv + chezmoi apply did it. Thanks.