Documentation / git-describe.txton commit Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/gitk/gitk (d69dc37)
   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] [--abbrev=<n>] <committish>...
  12
  13DESCRIPTION
  14-----------
  15The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a
  16commit, and if the commit itself is pointed at by the tag, shows
  17the tag.  Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with abbreviated
  18object name of the commit.
  19
  20
  21OPTIONS
  22-------
  23<committish>::
  24        The object name of the comittish. 
  25
  26--all::
  27        Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
  28        found in `.git/refs/`.
  29
  30--tags::
  31        Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
  32        found in `.git/refs/tags`.
  33
  34--abbrev=<n>::
  35        Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
  36        abbreviated object name, use <n> digits.
  37
  38
  39EXAMPLES
  40--------
  41
  42With something like git.git current tree, I get:
  43
  44        [torvalds@g5 git]$ git-describe parent
  45        v1.0.4-g2414721b
  46
  47i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
  48but since it has a few commits on top of that, it has added the
  49git hash of the thing to the end: "-g" + 8-char shorthand for
  50the commit `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`.
  51
  52Doing a "git-describe" on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
  53
  54        [torvalds@g5 git]$ git-describe v1.0.4
  55        v1.0.4
  56
  57With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so
  58the output shows the reference path as well:
  59
  60        [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
  61        tags/v1.0.0-g975b
  62
  63        [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all HEAD^
  64        heads/lt/describe-g975b
  65
  66
  67Author
  68------
  69Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, but somewhat
  70butchered by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
  71
  72Documentation
  73--------------
  74Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
  75
  76GIT
  77---
  78Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
  79