1GIT-DESCRIBE(1) Git Manual GIT-DESCRIBE(1)
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6 git-describe - Show the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit
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9 git-describe [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>]
10 <committish>...
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13 The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit,
14 and if the commit itself is pointed at by the tag, shows the tag.
15 Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of additional
16 commits and the abbreviated object name of the commit.
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19 <committish>
20 The object name of the committish.
21 --all
23 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref found in
24 .git/refs/.
25 --tags
27 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag found in
28 .git/refs/tags.
29 --contains
31 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find the tag
32 that comes after the commit, and thus contains it. Automatically
33 implies --tags.
34 --abbrev=<n>
36 Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
37 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits.
38 --candidates=<n>
40 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as candidates
41 to describe the input committish consider up to <n> candidates.
42 Increasing <n> above 10 will take slightly longer but may produce a
43 more accurate result.
44 --debug
46 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy being
47 employed to standard error. The tag name will still be printed to
48 standard out.
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51 With something like git.git current tree, I get:
52 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git-describe parent
55 v1.0.4-14-g2414721
56 i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4, but
57 since it has a handful commits on top of that, describe has added the
58 number of additional commits ("14") and an abbreviated object name for
59 the commit itself ("2414721") at the end.
60 The number of additional commits is the number of commits which would
62 be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". The hash suffix is "-g" +
63 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit of parent (which was
64 2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6).
65 Doing a "git-describe" on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
67 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git-describe v1.0.4
70 v1.0.4
71 With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so the
72 output shows the reference path as well:
73 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
76 tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b
77 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all HEAD^
79 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
80 With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the closest
81 tagname without any suffix:
82 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
85 tags/v1.0.0
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88 For each committish supplied "git describe" will first look for a tag
89 which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always be preferred
90 over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will always be
91 preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match is found, its
92 name will be output and searching will stop.
93 If an exact match was not found "git describe" will walk back through
95 the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which has been tagged.
96 The ancestor´s tag will be output along with an abbreviation of the
97 input committish´s SHA1.
98 If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which has the
100 fewest commits different from the input committish will be selected and
101 output. Here fewest commits different is defined as the number of
102 commits which would be shown by "git log tag..input" will be the
103 smallest number of commits possible.
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106 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, but somewhat butchered
107 by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>. Later significantly updated by
108 Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>.
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111 Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list
112 <git@vger.kernel.org>.
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115 Part of the git(7) suite
116Git 1.5.3.3 10/09/2007 GIT-DESCRIBE(1)