正如@Charles所说，git mv是一个简写。

这里真正的问题是“其他版本控制系统(例如。Subversion和Perforce)专门处理文件重命名。为什么Git不呢?”

Linus在http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/217上用他特有的机智解释道:

Please stop this "track files" crap. Git tracks exactly what matters, namely "collections of files". Nothing else is relevant, and even thinking that it is relevant only limits your world-view. Notice how the notion of CVS "annotate" always inevitably ends up limiting how people use it. I think it's a totally useless piece of crap, and I've described something that I think is a million times more useful, and it all fell out exactly because I'm not limiting my thinking to the wrong model of the world.

也许git mv在这些答案发布后发生了变化，所以我会简单更新一下。在我看来，git mv不能准确地描述为:

 # not accurate: #
 mv oldname newname
 git add newname
 git rm oldname

我经常使用git mv有两个原因，在之前的回答中没有描述:

移动大型目录结构，其中我混合了跟踪和未跟踪文件的内容。被跟踪和未跟踪的文件都将移动，并保持其跟踪/未跟踪状态 移动较大的文件和目录，我一直认为git mv将减少存储库DB历史大小。这是因为移动/重命名文件是索引/引用增量。我还没有证实这个假设，但它似乎是合乎逻辑的。

在一个特殊的情况下，git mv仍然非常有用:当您想在不区分大小写的文件系统上更改文件名的大小写时。默认情况下，APFS (mac)和NTFS (windows)都是不区分大小写的(但保留大小写)。

格雷格。金德尔在对CB Bailey的回答的评论中提到了这一点。

假设你在mac上工作，git管理着一个文件Mytest.txt。您需要将文件名更改为MyTest.txt。

你可以试试:

$ mv Mytest.txt MyTest.txt
overwrite MyTest.txt? (y/n [n]) y
$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean

哦亲爱的。Git不承认文件有任何更改。

你可以通过重命名文件来解决这个问题:

$ mv Mytest.txt temp.txt
$ git rm Mytest.txt
rm 'Mytest.txt'
$ mv temp.txt MyTest.txt
$ git add MyTest.txt 
$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    renamed:    Mytest.txt -> MyTest.txt

华友世纪!

或者你可以使用git mv来节省你所有的麻烦:

$ git mv Mytest.txt MyTest.txt
$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    renamed:    Mytest.txt -> MyTest.txt

git mv oldname newname

是:

mv oldname newname
git add newname
git rm oldname

也就是说，它会自动更新旧路径和新路径的索引。

来自官方的GitFaq:

Git有一个重命名命令Git mv，但这只是为了方便。的影响 是难以区分的删除文件和添加另一个不同的 名称和内容相同

Git只是试图为您猜测您要做什么。它正在尽一切努力保存完整的历史。当然，它并不完美。git mv允许你明确你的意图，避免一些错误。

考虑这个例子。从一个空回购开始，

git init
echo "First" >a
echo "Second" >b
git add *
git commit -m "initial commit"
mv a c
mv b a
git status

结果:

# On branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#   modified:   a
#   deleted:    b
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   c
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

自动检测失败:( 果真如此吗?

$ git add *
$ git commit -m "change"
$ git log c

commit 0c5425be1121c20cc45df04734398dfbac689c39
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:24:56 2013 -0400

    change

然后

$ git log --follow c

Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:24:56 2013 -0400

    change

commit 50c2a4604a27be2a1f4b95399d5e0f96c3dbf70a
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:24:45 2013 -0400

    initial commit

现在试试(记得在尝试时删除.git文件夹):

git init
echo "First" >a
echo "Second" >b
git add *
git commit -m "initial commit"
git mv a c
git status

到目前为止还不错:

# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   renamed:    a -> c


git mv b a
git status

没有人是完美的:

# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   modified:   a
#   deleted:    b
#   new file:   c
#

真的吗?但是当然……

git add *
git commit -m "change"
git log c
git log --follow c

.．.结果与上面相同:only——follow显示完整的历史。

现在，要小心重命名，因为任何一种选择都可能产生奇怪的效果。 例子:

git init
echo "First" >a
git add a
git commit -m "initial a"
echo "Second" >b
git add b
git commit -m "initial b"

git mv a c
git commit -m "first move"
git mv b a
git commit -m "second move"

git log --follow a

commit 81b80f5690deec1864ebff294f875980216a059d
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:35:58 2013 -0400

    second move

commit f284fba9dc8455295b1abdaae9cc6ee941b66e7f
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:34:54 2013 -0400

    initial b

对比一下:

git init
echo "First" >a
git add a
git commit -m "initial a"
echo "Second" >b
git add b
git commit -m "initial b"

git mv a c
git mv b a
git commit -m "both moves at the same time"

git log --follow a

结果:

commit 84bf29b01f32ea6b746857e0d8401654c4413ecd
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:37:13 2013 -0400

    both moves at the same time

commit ec0de3c5358758ffda462913f6e6294731400455
Author: Sergey Orshanskiy <*****@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 12 00:36:52 2013 -0400

    initial a

Ups……现在历史回到了a而不是b，这是错误的。因此，当我们一次移动两步时，Git变得混乱，无法正确跟踪更改。顺便说一下，在我的实验中，当我删除/创建文件而不是使用git mv时，也发生了同样的情况。小心地进行;我警告过你……