1git-tag(1) 2========== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git tag' [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] 13 <tagname> [<commit> | <object>] 14'git tag' -d <tagname>... 15'git tag' [-n[<num>]] -l [--contains <commit>] [<pattern>] 16'git tag' -v <tagname>... 17 18DESCRIPTION 19----------- 20 21Adds a tag reference in `.git/refs/tags/`. 22 23Unless `-f` is given, the tag must not yet exist in 24`.git/refs/tags/` directory. 25 26If one of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` is passed, the command 27creates a 'tag' object, and requires the tag message. Unless 28`-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given, an editor is started for the user to type 29in the tag message. 30 31If `-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given and `-a`, `-s`, and `-u <key-id>` 32are absent, `-a` is implied. 33 34Otherwise just the SHA1 object name of the commit object is 35written (i.e. a lightweight tag). 36 37A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u 38<key-id>` is used. When `-u <key-id>` is not used, the 39committer identity for the current user is used to find the 40GnuPG key for signing. 41 42OPTIONS 43------- 44-a:: 45 Make an unsigned, annotated tag object 46 47-s:: 48 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address's key 49 50-u <key-id>:: 51 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key 52 53-f:: 54 Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing) 55 56-d:: 57 Delete existing tags with the given names. 58 59-v:: 60 Verify the gpg signature of the given tag names. 61 62-n<num>:: 63 <num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, 64 are printed when using -l. 65 The default is not to print any annotation lines. 66 If no number is given to `-n`, only the first line is printed. 67 If the tag is not annotated, the commit message is displayed instead. 68 69-l <pattern>:: 70 List tags with names that match the given pattern (or all if no pattern is given). 71 Typing "git tag" without arguments, also lists all tags. 72 73--contains <commit>:: 74 Only list tags which contain the specified commit. 75 76-m <msg>:: 77 Use the given tag message (instead of prompting). 78 If multiple `-m` options are given, their values are 79 concatenated as separate paragraphs. 80 Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` 81 is given. 82 83-F <file>:: 84 Take the tag message from the given file. Use '-' to 85 read the message from the standard input. 86 Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` 87 is given. 88 89<tagname>:: 90 The name of the tag to create, delete, or describe. 91 The new tag name must pass all checks defined by 92 linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 93 may restrict the characters allowed in a tag name. 94 95CONFIGURATION 96------------- 97By default, 'git-tag' in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your 98committer identity (of the form "Your Name <your@email.address>") to 99find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can specify 100it in the repository configuration as follows: 101 102------------------------------------- 103[user] 104 signingkey = <gpg-key-id> 105------------------------------------- 106 107 108DISCUSSION 109---------- 110 111On Re-tagging 112~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 113 114What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would 115want to re-tag? 116 117If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to 118replace the old one. And you're done. 119 120But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read 121your repository directly), then others will have already seen 122the old tag. In that case you can do one of two things: 123 124. The sane thing. 125Just admit you screwed up, and use a different name. Others have 126already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the same name, you 127may be in the situation that two people both have "version X", 128but they actually have 'different' "X"'s. So just call it "X.1" 129and be done with it. 130 131. The insane thing. 132You really want to call the new version "X" too, 'even though' 133others have already seen the old one. So just use 'git-tag -f' 134again, as if you hadn't already published the old one. 135 136However, Git does *not* (and it should not) change tags behind 137users back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a 138'git-pull' on your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old 139one. 140 141If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change 142the tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big 143security issue, in that people MUST be able to trust their 144tag-names. If you really want to do the insane thing, you need 145to just fess up to it, and tell people that you messed up. You 146can do that by making a very public announcement saying: 147 148------------ 149Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I 150then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again. 151 152If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete 153the old one and fetch the new one by doing: 154 155 git tag -d X 156 git fetch origin tag X 157 158to get my updated tag. 159 160You can test which tag you have by doing 161 162 git rev-parse X 163 164which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version. 165 166Sorry for inconvenience. 167------------ 168 169Does this seem a bit complicated? It *should* be. There is no 170way that it would be correct to just "fix" it behind peoples 171backs. People need to know that their tags might have been 172changed. 173 174 175On Automatic following 176~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 177 178If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely 179using tracking branches (`refs/heads/origin` in traditional 180layout, or `refs/remotes/origin/master` in the separate-remote 181layout). You usually want the tags from the other end. 182 183On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a 184one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to 185get tags from there. This happens more often for people near 186the toplevel but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling 187from each other do not necessarily want to automatically get 188private anchor point tags from the other person. 189 190You would notice "please pull" messages on the mailing list says 191repo URL and branch name alone. This is designed to be easily 192cut&pasted to a 'git-fetch' command line: 193 194------------ 195Linus, please pull from 196 197 git://git..../proj.git master 198 199to get the following updates... 200------------ 201 202becomes: 203 204------------ 205$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master 206------------ 207 208In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow other's 209tags. 210 211One important aspect of git is it is distributed, and being 212distributed largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or 213"downstream" in the system. On the face of it, the above 214example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned 215by upper echelon of people and tags only flow downwards, but 216that is not the case. It only shows that the usage pattern 217determines who are interested in whose tags. 218 219A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing 220the boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are 221primarily interested in the networking part of the kernel") who may 222have their own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release 223candidate from the networking group to be proposed for general 224consumption with 2.6.21 release") to another circle of people 225(e.g. "people who integrate various subsystem improvements"). 226The latter are usually not interested in the detailed tags used 227internally in the former group (that is what "internal" means). 228That is why it is desirable not to follow tags automatically in 229this case. 230 231It may well be that among networking people, they may want to 232exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow 233they are most likely tracking with each other's progress by 234having tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically 235follow such tags is a good thing. 236 237 238On Backdating Tags 239~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 240 241If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like 242to add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able 243to specify the date to embed inside of the tag object. The data in 244the tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the 245gitweb interface. 246 247To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment 248variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE to one or more of the date and time. The 249date and time can be specified in a number of ways; the most common 250is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM". 251 252An example follows. 253 254------------ 255$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1 256------------ 257 258 259SEE ALSO 260-------- 261linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. 262 263Author 264------ 265Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, 266Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> and Chris Wright <chrisw@osdl.org>. 267 268Documentation 269-------------- 270Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 271 272GIT 273--- 274Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite