6 git-describe - Describe a commit using the most recent tag reachable from it
12 'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...]
13 '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].
30 Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if omitted.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
71 Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the
72 supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0.
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.
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....).
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
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.
107 Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.
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.
117 With something like git.git current tree, I get:
119 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent
122 i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
123 but since it has a few commits on top of that,
124 describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and
125 an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721")
128 The number of additional commits is the number
129 of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
130 The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
131 of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
132 The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
133 a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
134 in an environment where people may use different SCMs.
136 Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
138 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
141 With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so
142 the output shows the reference path as well:
144 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
147 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^
148 heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
150 With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the
151 closest tagname without any suffix:
153 [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
156 Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be
157 longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your
158 Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with
159 975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not
160 be sufficient to disambiguate these commits.
166 For each commit-ish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for
167 a tag which tags exactly that commit. Annotated tags will always
168 be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
169 always be preferred over tags with older dates. If an exact match
170 is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
172 If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back
173 through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
174 has been tagged. The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
175 abbreviation of the input commit-ish's SHA-1. If `--first-parent` was
176 specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of each
179 If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which
180 has the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be
181 selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as
182 the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input`
183 will be the smallest number of commits possible.
187 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
projects / git / blob