1git-describe(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-describe - Give an object a human readable name based on an available ref 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...] 12'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>] 13'git describe' <blob> 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. The result 22is a "human-readable" object name which can also be used to 23identify the commit to other git commands. 24 25By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows 26annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags 27see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1]. 28 29If the given object refers to a blob, it will be described 30as `<commit-ish>:<path>`, such that the blob can be found 31at `<path>` in the `<commit-ish>`, which itself describes the 32first commit in which this blob occurs in a reverse revision walk 33from HEAD. 34 35OPTIONS 36------- 37<commit-ish>...:: 38 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted. 39 40--dirty[=<mark>]:: 41--broken[=<mark>]:: 42 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working 43 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe 44 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" 45 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git 46 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will 47 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends 48 the suffix "-broken" instead. 49 50--all:: 51 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 52 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching 53 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag. 54 55--tags:: 56 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 57 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching 58 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 59 60--contains:: 61 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 62 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 63 Automatically implies --tags. 64 65--abbrev=<n>:: 66 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 67 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits 68 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0 69 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag. 70 71--candidates=<n>:: 72 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 73 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider 74 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 75 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 76 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 77 78--exact-match:: 79 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 80 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 81 82--debug:: 83 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 84 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 85 be printed to standard out. 86 87--long:: 88 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 89 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 90 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 91 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 92 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 93 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2 94 that points at object deadbee....). 95 96--match <pattern>:: 97 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, 98 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also 99 considers local branches and remote-tracking references matching the 100 pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" 101 prefix; references of other types are never considered. If given 102 multiple times, a list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags 103 matching any of the patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to 104 clear and reset the list of patterns. 105 106--exclude <pattern>:: 107 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding 108 the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also does not consider 109 local branches and remote-tracking references matching the pattern, 110 excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix; 111 references of other types are never considered. If given multiple times, 112 a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the 113 patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will be 114 considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not 115 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and 116 reset the list of patterns. 117 118--always:: 119 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 120 121--first-parent:: 122 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. 123 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged 124 in the history of the target commit. 125 126EXAMPLES 127-------- 128 129With something like git.git current tree, I get: 130 131 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 132 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 133 134i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 135but since it has a few commits on top of that, 136describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 137an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 138at the end. 139 140The number of additional commits is the number 141of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 142The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 143of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 144The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of 145a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful 146in an environment where people may use different SCMs. 147 148Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 149 150 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 151 v1.0.4 152 153With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 154the output shows the reference path as well: 155 156 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 157 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 158 159 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^ 160 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 161 162With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 163closest tagname without any suffix: 164 165 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 166 tags/v1.0.0 167 168Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be 169longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your 170Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with 171975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not 172be sufficient to disambiguate these commits. 173 174 175SEARCH STRATEGY 176--------------- 177 178For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for 179a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 180be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 181always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 182is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 183 184If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back 185through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 186has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 187abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was 188specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each 189commit. 190 191If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 192has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be 193selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 194the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 195will be the smallest number of commits possible. 196 197BUGS 198---- 199 200Tree objects as well as tag objects not pointing at commits, cannot be described. 201When describing blobs, the lightweight tags pointing at blobs are ignored, 202but the blob is still described as <committ-ish>:<path> despite the lightweight 203tag being favorable. 204 205GIT 206--- 207Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite