1git-tag(1) 2========== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git-tag' [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] <name> [<head>] 13'git-tag' -d <name>... 14'git-tag' [-n[<num>]] -l [<pattern>] 15'git-tag' -v <name>... 16 17DESCRIPTION 18----------- 19Adds a 'tag' reference in `.git/refs/tags/` 20 21Unless `-f` is given, the tag must not yet exist in 22`.git/refs/tags/` directory. 23 24If one of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` is passed, the command 25creates a 'tag' object, and requires the tag message. Unless 26`-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given, an editor is started for the user to type 27in the tag message. 28 29If `-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given and `-a`, `-s`, and `-u <key-id>` 30are absent, `-a` is implied. 31 32Otherwise just the SHA1 object name of the commit object is 33written (i.e. a lightweight tag). 34 35A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u 36<key-id>` is used. When `-u <key-id>` is not used, the 37committer identity for the current user is used to find the 38GnuPG key for signing. 39 40OPTIONS 41------- 42-a:: 43 Make an unsigned, annotated tag object 44 45-s:: 46 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address's key 47 48-u <key-id>:: 49 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key 50 51-f:: 52 Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing) 53 54-d:: 55 Delete existing tags with the given names. 56 57-v:: 58 Verify the gpg signature of the given tag names. 59 60-n<num>:: 61 <num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, 62 are printed when using -l. 63 The default is not to print any annotation lines. 64 If no number is given to `-n`, only the first line is printed. 65 66-l <pattern>:: 67 List tags with names that match the given pattern (or all if no pattern is given). 68 Typing "git tag" without arguments, also lists all tags. 69 70-m <msg>:: 71 Use the given tag message (instead of prompting). 72 If multiple `-m` options are given, there values are 73 concatenated as separate paragraphs. 74 Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` 75 is given. 76 77-F <file>:: 78 Take the tag message from the given file. Use '-' to 79 read the message from the standard input. 80 Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` 81 is given. 82 83CONFIGURATION 84------------- 85By default, git-tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your 86committer identity (of the form "Your Name <your@email.address>") to 87find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can specify 88it in the repository configuration as follows: 89 90------------------------------------- 91[user] 92 signingkey = <gpg-key-id> 93------------------------------------- 94 95 96DISCUSSION 97---------- 98 99On Re-tagging 100~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 101 102What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would 103want to re-tag? 104 105If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to 106replace the old one. And you're done. 107 108But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read 109your repository directly), then others will have already seen 110the old tag. In that case you can do one of two things: 111 112. The sane thing. 113Just admit you screwed up, and use a different name. Others have 114already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the same name, you 115may be in the situation that two people both have "version X", 116but they actually have 'different' "X"'s. So just call it "X.1" 117and be done with it. 118 119. The insane thing. 120You really want to call the new version "X" too, 'even though' 121others have already seen the old one. So just use "git tag -f" 122again, as if you hadn't already published the old one. 123 124However, Git does *not* (and it should not) change tags behind 125users back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a "git 126pull" on your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old 127one. 128 129If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change 130the tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big 131security issue, in that people MUST be able to trust their 132tag-names. If you really want to do the insane thing, you need 133to just fess up to it, and tell people that you messed up. You 134can do that by making a very public announcement saying: 135 136------------ 137Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I 138then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again. 139 140If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete 141the old one and fetch the new one by doing: 142 143 git tag -d X 144 git fetch origin tag X 145 146to get my updated tag. 147 148You can test which tag you have by doing 149 150 git rev-parse X 151 152which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version. 153 154Sorry for inconvenience. 155------------ 156 157Does this seem a bit complicated? It *should* be. There is no 158way that it would be correct to just "fix" it behind peoples 159backs. People need to know that their tags might have been 160changed. 161 162 163On Automatic following 164~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 165 166If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely 167using tracking branches (`refs/heads/origin` in traditional 168layout, or `refs/remotes/origin/master` in the separate-remote 169layout). You usually want the tags from the other end. 170 171On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a 172one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to 173get tags from there. This happens more often for people near 174the toplevel but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling 175from each other do not necessarily want to automatically get 176private anchor point tags from the other person. 177 178You would notice "please pull" messages on the mailing list says 179repo URL and branch name alone. This is designed to be easily 180cut&pasted to "git fetch" command line: 181 182------------ 183Linus, please pull from 184 185 git://git..../proj.git master 186 187to get the following updates... 188------------ 189 190becomes: 191 192------------ 193$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master 194------------ 195 196In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow other's 197tags. 198 199One important aspect of git is it is distributed, and being 200distributed largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or 201"downstream" in the system. On the face of it, the above 202example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned 203by upper echelon of people and tags only flow downwards, but 204that is not the case. It only shows that the usage pattern 205determines who are interested in whose tags. 206 207A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing 208the boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are 209primarily interested in networking part of the kernel") who may 210have their own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release 211candidate from the networking group to be proposed for general 212consumption with 2.6.21 release") to another circle of people 213(e.g. "people who integrate various subsystem improvements"). 214The latter are usually not interested in the detailed tags used 215internally in the former group (that is what "internal" means). 216That is why it is desirable not to follow tags automatically in 217this case. 218 219It may well be that among networking people, they may want to 220exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow 221they are most likely tracking with each other's progress by 222having tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically 223follow such tags is a good thing. 224 225 226On Backdating Tags 227~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 228 229If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like 230to add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able 231to specify the date to embed inside of the tag object. The data in 232the tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the 233gitweb interface. 234 235To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment 236variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE to one or more of the date and time. The 237date and time can be specified in a number of ways; the most common 238is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM". 239 240An example follows. 241 242------------ 243$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1 244------------ 245 246 247Author 248------ 249Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, 250Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and Chris Wright <chrisw@osdl.org>. 251 252Documentation 253-------------- 254Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 255 256GIT 257--- 258Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite