1git-describe(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-describe - Describe a commit using the most recent tag reachable from it 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...] 13'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>] 14 15DESCRIPTION 16----------- 17The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a 18commit. If the tag points to the commit, then only the tag is 19shown. Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of 20additional commits on top of the tagged object and the 21abbreviated object name of the most recent commit. 22 23By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows 24annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags 25see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1]. 26 27OPTIONS 28------- 29<commit-ish>...:: 30 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted. 31 32--dirty[=<mark>]:: 33--broken[=<mark>]:: 34 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working 35 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe 36 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" 37 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git 38 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will 39 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends 40 the suffix "-broken" instead. 41 42--all:: 43 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 44 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching 45 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag. 46 47--tags:: 48 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 49 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching 50 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 51 52--contains:: 53 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 54 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 55 Automatically implies --tags. 56 57--abbrev=<n>:: 58 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 59 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits 60 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0 61 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag. 62 63--candidates=<n>:: 64 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 65 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider 66 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 67 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 68 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 69 70--exact-match:: 71 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 72 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 73 74--debug:: 75 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 76 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 77 be printed to standard out. 78 79--long:: 80 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 81 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 82 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 83 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 84 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 85 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2 86 that points at object deadbee....). 87 88--match <pattern>:: 89 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, 90 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also 91 considers local branches and remote-tracking references matching the 92 pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" 93 prefix; references of other types are never considered. If given 94 multiple times, a list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags 95 matching any of the patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to 96 clear and reset the list of patterns. 97 98--exclude <pattern>:: 99 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding 100 the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also does not consider 101 local branches and remote-tracking references matching the pattern, 102 excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix; 103 references of other types are never considered. If given multiple times, 104 a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the 105 patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will be 106 considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not 107 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and 108 reset the list of patterns. 109 110--always:: 111 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 112 113--first-parent:: 114 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. 115 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged 116 in the history of the target commit. 117 118EXAMPLES 119-------- 120 121With something like git.git current tree, I get: 122 123 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 124 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 125 126i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 127but since it has a few commits on top of that, 128describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 129an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 130at the end. 131 132The number of additional commits is the number 133of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 134The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 135of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 136The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of 137a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful 138in an environment where people may use different SCMs. 139 140Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 141 142 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 143 v1.0.4 144 145With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 146the output shows the reference path as well: 147 148 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 149 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 150 151 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^ 152 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 153 154With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 155closest tagname without any suffix: 156 157 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 158 tags/v1.0.0 159 160Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be 161longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your 162Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with 163975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not 164be sufficient to disambiguate these commits. 165 166 167SEARCH STRATEGY 168--------------- 169 170For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for 171a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 172be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 173always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 174is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 175 176If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back 177through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 178has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 179abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was 180specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each 181commit. 182 183If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 184has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be 185selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 186the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 187will be the smallest number of commits possible. 188 189GIT 190--- 191Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite