6 git-describe - Give an object a human readable name based on an available ref
11 'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...]
12 'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>]
17 The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a
18 commit. If the tag points to the commit, then only the tag is
19 shown. Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of
20 additional commits on top of the tagged object and the
21 abbreviated object name of the most recent commit.
23 By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows
24 annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags
25 see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1].
27 If the given object refers to a blob, it will be described
28 as `<commit-ish>:<path>`, such that the blob can be found
29 at `<path>` in the `<commit-ish>`, which itself describes the
30 first commit in which this blob occurs in a reverse revision walk
36 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted.
40 Describe the state of the working tree. When the working
41 tree matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe
42 HEAD". If the working tree has local modification "-dirty"
43 is appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git
44 cannot determine if there is local modification, Git will
45 error out, unless `--broken' is given, which appends
46 the suffix "-broken" instead.
49 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
50 found in `refs/` namespace. This option enables matching
51 any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag.
54 Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
55 found in `refs/tags` namespace. This option enables matching
56 a lightweight (non-annotated) tag.
59 Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find
60 the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it.
61 Automatically implies --tags.
64 Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the
65 abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits
66 as needed to form a unique object name. An <n> of 0
67 will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag.
70 Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as
71 candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider
72 up to <n> candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take
73 slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result.
74 An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output.
77 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the
78 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0.
81 Verbosely display information about the searching strategy
82 being employed to standard error. The tag name will still
83 be printed to standard out.
86 Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits
87 and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag.
88 This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name
89 in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be
90 a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will
91 describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2
92 that points at object deadbee....).
95 Only consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern,
96 excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also
97 considers local branches and remote-tracking references matching the
98 pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/"
99 prefix; references of other types are never considered. If given
100 multiple times, a list of patterns will be accumulated, and tags
101 matching any of the patterns will be considered. Use `--no-match` to
102 clear and reset the list of patterns.
104 --exclude <pattern>::
105 Do not consider tags matching the given `glob(7)` pattern, excluding
106 the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with `--all`, it also does not consider
107 local branches and remote-tracking references matching the pattern,
108 excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix;
109 references of other types are never considered. If given multiple times,
110 a list of patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the
111 patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag will be
112 considered when it matches at least one --match pattern and does not
113 match any of the --exclude patterns. Use `--no-exclude` to clear and
114 reset the list of patterns.
117 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.
120 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit.
121 This is useful when you wish to not match tags on branches merged
122 in the history of the target commit.
127 With something like git.git current tree, I get:
129 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent
132 i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
133 but since it has a few commits on top of that,
134 describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and
135 an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721")
138 The number of additional commits is the number
139 of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
140 The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
141 of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
142 The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
143 a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
144 in an environment where people may use different SCMs.
146 Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
148 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
151 With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so
152 the output shows the reference path as well:
154 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
157 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^
158 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
160 With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the
161 closest tagname without any suffix:
163 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
166 Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be
167 longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your
168 Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with
169 975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not
170 be sufficient to disambiguate these commits.
176 For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for
177 a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always
178 be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
179 always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match
180 is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
182 If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back
183 through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
184 has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
185 abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was
186 specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each
189 If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which
190 has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be
191 selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as
192 the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input`
193 will be the smallest number of commits possible.
198 Tree objects as well as tag objects not pointing at commits, cannot be described.
199 When describing blobs, the lightweight tags pointing at blobs are ignored,
200 but the blob is still described as <committ-ish>:<path> despite the lightweight
205 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
projects / git / blob