Files moved and modified in one pull request

Question

Sometimes I get to review a bunch of files that have been moved and modified. In GitHub I cannot find a way to see what has been modified. Everything looks like a new file. It makes review harder because I am probably reviewing something that has already been reviewed.

What is a proper way to handle such changes on requestor side?

One idea that comes to my mind is to split changes into two pull requests:

1. One with moving files.
2. Another with modifying the files.

Or perhaps there is also something that can be done on reviewers side? Some tool to help?

Answer 1

It's something that I would strongly recommend - if you plan to move files around, create one pull request just to move the files, and obviously make all the necessary changes to keep your project working (make files etc. that need to be modified). Reviewing changes in moved files is an absolute pain, and there is no reason why you should need to suffer with that.

A separate commit may be enough, but depending on your working style, I'd prefer the separate pull request.