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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. The result
22is a "human-readable" object name which can also be used to
23identify the commit to other git commands.
24
25By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows
26annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags
27see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1].
28
29If the given object refers to a blob, it will be described
30as `<commit-ish>:<path>`, such that the blob can be found
31at `<path>` in the `<commit-ish>`, which itself describes the
32first commit in which this blob occurs in a reverse revision walk
33from HEAD.
34
35OPTIONS
36-------
37<commit-ish>...::
38 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted.
39
40--dirty[=<mark>]::
41--broken[=<mark>]::
42 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working
43 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe
44 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty"
45 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git
46 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will
47 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends
48 the suffix "-broken" instead.
49
50--all::
51 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
52 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching
53 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag.
54
55--tags::
56 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
57 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching
58 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag.
59
60--contains::
61 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find
62 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it.
63 Automatically implies --tags.
64
65--abbrev=<n>::
66 Instead of using the default number of hexadecimal digits (which
67 will vary according to the number of objects in the repository with
68 a default of 7) of the abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or
69 as many digits as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0
70 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag.
71
72--candidates=<n>::
73 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as
74 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider
75 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take
76 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result.
77 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output.
78
79--exact-match::
80 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the
81 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0.
82
83--debug::
84 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy
85 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still
86 be printed to standard out.
87
88--long::
89 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits
90 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag.
91 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name
92 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be
93 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will
94 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2
95 that points at object deadbee....).
96
97--match <pattern>::
98 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern,
99 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also
100 considers local branches and remote-tracking references matching the
101 pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/"
102 prefix; references of other types are never considered. If given
103 multiple times, a list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags
104 matching any of the patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to
105 clear and reset the list of patterns.
106
107--exclude <pattern>::
108 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding
109 the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also does not consider
110 local branches and remote-tracking references matching the pattern,
111 excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix;
112 references of other types are never considered. If given multiple times,
113 a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the
114 patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will be
115 considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not
116 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and
117 reset the list of patterns.
118
119--always::
120 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.
121
122--first-parent::
123 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit.
124 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged
125 in the history of the target commit.
126
127EXAMPLES
128--------
129
130With something like git.git current tree, I get:
131
132 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent
133 v1.0.4-14-g2414721
134
135i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
136but since it has a few commits on top of that,
137describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and
138an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721")
139at the end.
140
141The number of additional commits is the number
142of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
143The hash suffix is "-g" + an unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit
144of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). The
145length of the abbreviation scales as the repository grows, using the
146approximate number of objects in the repository and a bit of math
147around the birthday paradox, and defaults to a minimum of 7.
148The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
149a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
150in an environment where people may use different SCMs.
151
152Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
153
154 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
155 v1.0.4
156
157With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so
158the output shows the reference path as well:
159
160 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
161 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b
162
163 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^
164 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
165
166With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the
167closest tagname without any suffix:
168
169 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
170 tags/v1.0.0
171
172Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be
173longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your
174Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with
175975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not
176be sufficient to disambiguate these commits.
177
178
179SEARCH STRATEGY
180---------------
181
182For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for
183a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always
184be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
185always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match
186is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
187
188If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back
189through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
190has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
191abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was
192specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each
193commit.
194
195If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which
196has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be
197selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as
198the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input`
199will be the smallest number of commits possible.
200
201BUGS
202----
203
204Tree objects as well as tag objects not pointing at commits, cannot be described.
205When describing blobs, the lightweight tags pointing at blobs are ignored,
206but the blob is still described as <commit-ish>:<path> despite the lightweight
207tag being favorable.
208
209GIT
210---
211Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite