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 Describe the working tree. 34 It means describe HEAD and appends <mark> (`-dirty` by 35 default) if the working tree is dirty. 36 37--all:: 38 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 39 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching 40 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag. 41 42--tags:: 43 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 44 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching 45 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 46 47--contains:: 48 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 49 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 50 Automatically implies --tags. 51 52--abbrev=<n>:: 53 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 54 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits 55 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0 56 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag. 57 58--candidates=<n>:: 59 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 60 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider 61 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 62 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 63 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 64 65--exact-match:: 66 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 67 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 68 69--debug:: 70 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 71 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 72 be printed to standard out. 73 74--long:: 75 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 76 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 77 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 78 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 79 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 80 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2 81 that points at object deadbee....). 82 83--match <pattern>:: 84 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, 85 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. This can be used to avoid 86 leaking private tags from the repository. If given multiple times, a 87 list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags matching any of the 88 patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to clear and reset the 89 list of patterns. 90 91--always:: 92 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 93 94--first-parent:: 95 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. 96 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged 97 in the history of the target commit. 98 99EXAMPLES 100-------- 101 102With something like git.git current tree, I get: 103 104 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 105 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 106 107i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 108but since it has a few commits on top of that, 109describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 110an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 111at the end. 112 113The number of additional commits is the number 114of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 115The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 116of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 117The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of 118a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful 119in an environment where people may use different SCMs. 120 121Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 122 123 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 124 v1.0.4 125 126With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 127the output shows the reference path as well: 128 129 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 130 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 131 132 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^ 133 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 134 135With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 136closest tagname without any suffix: 137 138 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 139 tags/v1.0.0 140 141Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be 142longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your 143Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with 144975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not 145be sufficient to disambiguate these commits. 146 147 148SEARCH STRATEGY 149--------------- 150 151For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for 152a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 153be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 154always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 155is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 156 157If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back 158through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 159has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 160abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was 161specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each 162commit. 163 164If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 165has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be 166selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 167the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 168will be the smallest number of commits possible. 169 170GIT 171--- 172Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite