1git-describe(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-describe - Show the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] <committish>... 12 13DESCRIPTION 14----------- 15The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a 16commit. If the tag points to the commit, then only the tag is 17shown. Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of 18additional commits on top of the tagged object and the 19abbreviated object name of the most recent commit. 20 21By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows 22annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags 23see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1]. 24 25OPTIONS 26------- 27<committish>...:: 28 Committish object names to describe. 29 30--all:: 31 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 32 found in `.git/refs/`. This option enables matching 33 any known branch, remote branch, or lightweight tag. 34 35--tags:: 36 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 37 found in `.git/refs/tags`. This option enables matching 38 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 39 40--contains:: 41 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 42 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 43 Automatically implies --tags. 44 45--abbrev=<n>:: 46 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 47 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits. 48 49--candidates=<n>:: 50 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 51 candidates to describe the input committish consider 52 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 53 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 54 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 55 56--exact-match:: 57 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 58 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 59 60--debug:: 61 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 62 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 63 be printed to standard out. 64 65--long:: 66 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 67 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 68 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 69 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 70 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 71 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-deadbeef (0th commit since tag v1.2 72 that points at object deadbeef....). 73 74--match <pattern>:: 75 Only consider tags matching the given pattern (can be used to avoid 76 leaking private tags made from the repository). 77 78--always:: 79 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 80 81EXAMPLES 82-------- 83 84With something like git.git current tree, I get: 85 86 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 87 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 88 89i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 90but since it has a few commits on top of that, 91describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 92an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 93at the end. 94 95The number of additional commits is the number 96of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 97The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 98of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 99 100Doing a 'git-describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 101 102 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 103 v1.0.4 104 105With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 106the output shows the reference path as well: 107 108 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 109 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 110 111 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all HEAD^ 112 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 113 114With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 115closest tagname without any suffix: 116 117 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 118 tags/v1.0.0 119 120SEARCH STRATEGY 121--------------- 122 123For each committish supplied, 'git-describe' will first look for 124a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 125be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 126always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 127is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 128 129If an exact match was not found, 'git-describe' will walk back 130through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 131has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 132abbreviation of the input committish's SHA1. 133 134If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 135has the fewest commits different from the input committish will be 136selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 137the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 138will be the smallest number of commits possible. 139 140 141Author 142------ 143Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, but somewhat 144butchered by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>. Later significantly 145updated by Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>. 146 147Documentation 148-------------- 149Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 150 151GIT 152--- 153Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite