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--broken[=<mark>]:: 34 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working 35 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe 36 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" 37 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git 38 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will 39 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends 40 the suffix "-broken" instead. 41 42--all:: 43 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref 44 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching 45 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag. 46 47--tags:: 48 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag 49 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching 50 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag. 51 52--contains:: 53 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find 54 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. 55 Automatically implies --tags. 56 57--abbrev=<n>:: 58 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the 59 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits 60 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0 61 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag. 62 63--candidates=<n>:: 64 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as 65 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider 66 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take 67 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result. 68 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output. 69 70--exact-match:: 71 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the 72 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0. 73 74--debug:: 75 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy 76 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still 77 be printed to standard out. 78 79--long:: 80 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits 81 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag. 82 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name 83 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be 84 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will 85 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2 86 that points at object deadbee....). 87 88--match <pattern>:: 89 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, 90 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. This can be used to avoid 91 leaking private tags from the repository. If given multiple times, a 92 list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags matching any of the 93 patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to clear and reset the 94 list of patterns. 95 96--exclude <pattern>:: 97 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding 98 the "refs/tags/" prefix. This can be used to narrow the tag space and 99 find only tags matching some meaningful criteria. If given multiple 100 times, a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any 101 of the patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will 102 be considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not 103 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and 104 reset the list of patterns. 105 106--always:: 107 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback. 108 109--first-parent:: 110 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. 111 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged 112 in the history of the target commit. 113 114EXAMPLES 115-------- 116 117With something like git.git current tree, I get: 118 119 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent 120 v1.0.4-14-g2414721 121 122i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, 123but since it has a few commits on top of that, 124describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and 125an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721") 126at the end. 127 128The number of additional commits is the number 129of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". 130The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit 131of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). 132The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of 133a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful 134in an environment where people may use different SCMs. 135 136Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name: 137 138 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4 139 v1.0.4 140 141With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so 142the output shows the reference path as well: 143 144 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2 145 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b 146 147 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^ 148 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b 149 150With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the 151closest tagname without any suffix: 152 153 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2 154 tags/v1.0.0 155 156Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be 157longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your 158Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with 159975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not 160be sufficient to disambiguate these commits. 161 162 163SEARCH STRATEGY 164--------------- 165 166For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for 167a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always 168be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will 169always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match 170is found, its name will be output and searching will stop. 171 172If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back 173through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which 174has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an 175abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was 176specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each 177commit. 178 179If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which 180has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be 181selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as 182the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input` 183will be the smallest number of commits possible. 184 185GIT 186--- 187Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite