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. 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 27If the given object refers to a blob, it will be described 28as `<commit-ish>:<path>`, such that the blob can be found 29at `<path>` in the `<commit-ish>`, which itself describes the 30first commit in which this blob occurs in a reverse revision walk 31from HEAD. 32 33OPTIONS 34------- 35<commit-ish>...:: 36 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted. 37 38--dirty[=<mark>]:: 39--broken[=<mark>]:: 40 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working 41 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe 42 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" 43 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git 44 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will 45 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends 46 the suffix "-broken" instead. 47 48--all:: 49 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 50 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching 51 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag. 52 53--tags:: 54 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 55 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching 56 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 57 58--contains:: 59 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 60 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 61 Automatically implies --tags. 62 63--abbrev=<n>:: 64 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 65 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits 66 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0 67 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag. 68 69--candidates=<n>:: 70 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 71 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider 72 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 73 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 74 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 75 76--exact-match:: 77 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 78 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 79 80--debug:: 81 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 82 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 83 be printed to standard out. 84 85--long:: 86 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 87 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 88 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 89 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 90 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 91 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2 92 that points at object deadbee....). 93 94--match <pattern>:: 95 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, 96 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also 97 considers local branches and remote-tracking references matching the 98 pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" 99 prefix; references of other types are never considered. If given 100 multiple times, a list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags 101 matching any of the patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to 102 clear and reset the list of patterns. 103 104--exclude <pattern>:: 105 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding 106 the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also does not consider 107 local branches and remote-tracking references matching the pattern, 108 excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix; 109 references of other types are never considered. If given multiple times, 110 a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the 111 patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will be 112 considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not 113 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and 114 reset the list of patterns. 115 116--always:: 117 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 118 119--first-parent:: 120 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. 121 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged 122 in the history of the target commit. 123 124EXAMPLES 125-------- 126 127With something like git.git current tree, I get: 128 129 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 130 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 131 132i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 133but since it has a few commits on top of that, 134describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 135an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 136at the end. 137 138The number of additional commits is the number 139of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 140The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 141of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 142The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of 143a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful 144in an environment where people may use different SCMs. 145 146Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 147 148 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 149 v1.0.4 150 151With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 152the output shows the reference path as well: 153 154 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 155 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 156 157 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^ 158 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 159 160With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 161closest tagname without any suffix: 162 163 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 164 tags/v1.0.0 165 166Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be 167longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your 168Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with 169975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not 170be sufficient to disambiguate these commits. 171 172 173SEARCH STRATEGY 174--------------- 175 176For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for 177a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 178be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 179always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 180is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 181 182If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back 183through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 184has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 185abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was 186specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each 187commit. 188 189If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 190has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be 191selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 192the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 193will be the smallest number of commits possible. 194 195BUGS 196---- 197 198Tree objects as well as tag objects not pointing at commits, cannot be described. 199When describing blobs, the lightweight tags pointing at blobs are ignored, 200but the blob is still described as <committ-ish>:<path> despite the lightweight 201tag being favorable. 202 203GIT 204--- 205Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite