Renaming branches

[eliottwiener]

In the README there is an example given that uses --to-subdirectory-filter with --tag-rename:

git filter-repo --path src/ --to-subdirectory-filter my-module --tag-rename '':'my-module-'

Is there a flag for renaming branches as well, similar to --tag-rename?

I would like to be able to rename all branches to add a prefix.

[newren]

If you want to rename a branch, just use git branch -m <oldbranch> <newbranch>; no need to use a history filtering tool to achieve that. You'll note that git tag does not have a rename operation similar to git branch -m .... The reason is that there are special tag objects (but not any special branch objects), and those tag objects not only store a message but also (semi-redundantly) record the name of the tag. For the non-lightweight tags to really be renamed, those tag objects also have to be rewritten to record the new name, which is what makes it a history modifying operation.

[eliottwiener]

Thank you for the answer. I appreciate the additional explanation on why --tag-rename exists within the scope of git-filter-repo.

[gasbi]

Just for completion, you can use grep to rename all branches at the same time because with git branch -m seems that you have to do it one by one.
git branch | grep "StringToFind" | awk '{original=$1; sub("StringToFind","ReplaceWith"); print original, $1}' | xargs -n 2 git branch -m

Taken from https://stackoverflow.com/a/45118832/4566352