SYNOPSIS
--------
+[verse]
'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] <committish>...
+'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>]
DESCRIPTION
-----------
<committish>...::
Committish object names to describe.
+--dirty[=<mark>]::
+ Describe the working tree.
+ It means describe HEAD and appends <mark> (`-dirty` by
+ default) if the working tree is dirty.
+
--all::
Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
found in `.git/refs/`. This option enables matching
- any known branch, remote branch, or lightweight tag.
+ any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag.
--tags::
Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
+The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
+a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
+in an environment where people may use different SCMs.
-Doing a 'git-describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
+Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
v1.0.4
SEARCH STRATEGY
---------------
-For each committish supplied, 'git-describe' will first look for
+For each committish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for
a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always
be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match
is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
-If an exact match was not found, 'git-describe' will walk back
+If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back
through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
abbreviation of the input committish's SHA1.