Git overwrites file metadata including creation and modification date

& (verbiage overflow) ⋅ ⋅ Sat 12 October 2013 ⋅ RSS ⋅ Search ⋅ Subscribe

Git does one very annoying thing that Mercurial does not — it overwrites all file timestamps, including even creation date. That is very cavalier indeed, since file timestamps are an important resource available to us to untangle the occasional merge-gone-wrong, not to mention keeping track of files that may have had a meaningful history outside of the repository. It will not do to overwrite this information silently.

Losing file timestamps is a serious problem for me, and it means that from today on, unless I find a work-around, I will use Git much more reservedly than I might otherwise.

There is a script called Metastore that is supposed to preserve all metadata: [http://david.hardeman.nu/software.php#metastore][]; but attempts to clone the repo linked to there are failing today. I find something described as a mirror at https://github.com/PKRoma/metastore and a fork (altered to support OS X) at https://github.com/chadrik/metastore. The latter compiles without drama using make on OS 10.8.5. I've add my own notes to the README file at https://github.com/brannerchinese/metastore.

All articles

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  369. Reconsider P. T. Barnum's reputation
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  371. View of the Mariana Trench
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  373. Choice of formats for basic code documentation
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  375. Inconsistent results of the same seed in random.seed() on different Python installations
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  381. p::c
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  383. Portmanteau characters in Chinese (abstract)
  384. A math professor I enjoyed
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  387. A new kind of noise in the subway
  388. Router VI is dead
  389. Tinker Tailor remake
  390. Automated upward pricing spiral
  391. Break-in?
  392. Telephantasmia, one of the great gifts of Chinese culture
  393. September 11th sensations
  394. Whether to take a small loss or consent to the devaluation of the US dollar
  395. City checkpoint chaos
  396. Continuing opportunity for techno-elitism
  397. A worry of Donald Knuth's
  398. An opinion of TeX
  399. Advice on teaching English in China if you lack a TEFL degree
  400. "The Highline" Park
  401. Plutarch on the sensitivity and versatility of the human mind
  402. Plutarch's praise of the "fox" temperament
  403. Unagi hitsumabushi 鰻櫃まぶし
  404. My mother and me, at work on the Early China index, 20110526
  405. juémíngzǐ 決明子 tisane
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  410. Dr. Johnson on the "fox" temperament
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  413. Deborah Ball's article on the opposition to standardizing the Romansh language (WSJ)
  414. Boris Veytsman's review of Kottwitz, LaTeX Beginner's Guide
  415. Why even 212 phone numbers calling in-area have to dial 212 first
  416. Dr. Johnson on keeping a diary
  417. Against object-oriented design (except in scripting languages)
  418. Worrying about inadequate memory to hold program and debugger (1973)
  419. Consequences of a compiler defect
  420. The Internet and scripting languages
  421. Newton's own suffering at math
  422. Fresh turmeric-root tea
  423. Appreciation of awk
  424. "Computer Science, Modern Languages Most Gender-Polarized Majors"
  425. Food issues during the Siege of Leningrad
  426. Starting a blog