When inside a git repository in Powershell or CMD, issuing
git mv * whatever
will return
fatal: bad source, source=*, destination=whatever
This works fine when using MSYS (Git Bash).
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3CMD and PowerShell does not expand globing characters, like bash does.– user364455Mar 9, 2016 at 16:24
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@PetSerAl you should post this as the answer along with suggesting to use the bash shell; totally solves the problem! Thanks :)– Lea HayesFeb 18, 2017 at 9:34
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5 Answers
As has been pointed out by others in this thread, the star does not automatically expand to file names in PowerShell. Thus, the command let get-childItem needs to be used, which explicitely tells PowerShell to expand wildcard characters.
You want to put the result of get-childItem * into parentheses so that they are expanded before the entire git mv command is executed:
git mv (get-childItem *) whatever
To save a few key strokes, you might want to use the alias gci for get-childItem:
git mv (gci *) whatever
answered Oct 7, 2020 at 15:59
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Use
-kflag to skip commands that produce errors. For example, if you're copying items to a subdirectory that already exists, you'll getcan not move directory into itself.– bendodgeOct 4, 2021 at 21:33
As @PetSerAI said, the Windows command prompt and PowerShell will not expand the globing characters and it makes git mv fail.
Use a bash shell like MSYS instead.
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Could you please elaborate on how does Powershell interpret globbing characters?– VáthorkMar 31, 2017 at 3:19
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I'm not really sure, sorry :( I think it has to do with how PS works - in that it pipes objects. e.g. gist.github.com/DNNX/1481234 Mar 31, 2017 at 5:43
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1While I agree that PowerShell does not handle this particularly well, on Windows many people live in PowerShell, and just saying "use a bash shell" to a PowerShell user is like telling a vim user to "use emacs instead." This answer below does provide a halfway-decent workaround in PowerShell. Oct 7, 2020 at 22:45
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1and why would we use what looks like bloatware (i installed git, not bash) when we have two perfectly good shells already? Jan 14, 2021 at 17:19
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1Also the problem is not with cmd or ps, they have been capable of wildcarding file match for like, ever.
dir *.txtfor example. Git just assumes its working in a *nix shell. Jan 14, 2021 at 17:27
Using PowerShell to move the content of source to whatever folder you can run this command:
Get-ChildItem .\source\ | ForEach-Object { git mv $_.FullName .\whatever\ }
Your directory structure would look like this before:
+--C:\code\Project\
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+----+bootstrap.py
+----+requirements.txt
+----+.gitignore
+----+source
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+---------+manage.py
+---------+modules
+---------+templates
+---------+static
+----+whatever
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+---------+cool.py
And after running would look like this:
+--C:\code\Project\
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+----+bootstrap.py
+----+requirements.txt
+----+.gitignore
+----+source
+----+whatever
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+---------+cool.py
+---------+manage.py
+---------+modules
+---------+templates
+---------+static
Solution for cmd
for %i in (*) do git mv %i whatever/
This also happens when you "source" directory doesn't exist.
