# git-describe

## NAME



           git-describe - Give an object a human readable name based on an
           available ref
    


## SYNOPSIS



           _git describe_ [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...]
           _git describe_ [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>]
           _git describe_ <blob>
    


## DESCRIPTION



           The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a
           commit. If the tag points to the commit, then only the tag is
           shown. Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of
           additional commits on top of the tagged object and the abbreviated
           object name of the most recent commit. The result is a
           "human-readable" object name which can also be used to identify
           the commit to other git commands.
    
           By default (without --all or --tags) **git describe** only shows
           annotated tags. For more information about creating annotated tags
           see the -a and -s options to git-tag(1).
    
           If the given object refers to a blob, it will be described as
           _< commit-ish>_**:**_< path>_, such that the blob can be found at _< path>_ in
           the _< commit-ish>_, which itself describes the first commit in which
           this blob occurs in a reverse revision walk from HEAD.
    


## OPTIONS



           <commit-ish>...
               Commit-ish object names to describe. Defaults to HEAD if
               omitted.
    
           --dirty[=<mark>], --broken[=<mark>]
               Describe the state of the working tree. When the working tree
               matches HEAD, the output is the same as "git describe HEAD".
               If the working tree has local modification "-dirty" is
               appended to it. If a repository is corrupt and Git cannot
               determine if there is local modification, Git will error out,
               unless ‘--broken’ is given, which appends the suffix "-broken"
               instead.
    
           --all
               Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref found in
               **refs/** namespace. This option enables matching any known
               branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag.
    
           --tags
               Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag found in
               **refs/tags** namespace. This option enables matching a
               lightweight (non-annotated) tag.
    
           --contains
               Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find the
               tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it.
               Automatically implies --tags.
    
           --abbrev=<n>
               Instead of using the default number of hexadecimal digits
               (which will vary according to the number of objects in the
               repository with a default of 7) of the abbreviated object
               name, use <n> digits, or as many digits as needed to form a
               unique object name. An <n> of 0 will suppress long format,
               only showing the closest tag.
    
           --candidates=<n>
               Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as
               candidates to describe the input commit-ish consider up to <n>
               candidates. Increasing <n> above 10 will take slightly longer
               but may produce a more accurate result. An <n> of 0 will cause
               only exact matches to be output.
    
           --exact-match
               Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the
               supplied commit). This is a synonym for --candidates=0.
    
           --debug
               Verbosely display information about the searching strategy
               being employed to standard error. The tag name will still be
               printed to standard out.
    
           --long
               Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits
               and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag.
               This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object
               name in "describe" output, even when the commit in question
               happens to be a tagged version. Instead of just emitting the
               tag name, it will describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee
               (0th commit since tag v1.2 that points at object deadbee....).
    
           --match <pattern>
               Only consider tags matching the given **glob**(**7**) pattern,
               excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with **--all** , it also
               considers local branches and remote-tracking references
               matching the pattern, excluding respectively "refs/heads/" and
               "refs/remotes/" prefix; references of other types are never
               considered. If given multiple times, a list of patterns will
               be accumulated, and tags matching any of the patterns will be
               considered. Use **--no-match** to clear and reset the list of
               patterns.
    
           --exclude <pattern>
               Do not consider tags matching the given **glob**(**7**) pattern,
               excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix. If used with **--all** , it also
               does not consider local branches and remote-tracking
               references matching the pattern, excluding respectively
               "refs/heads/" and "refs/remotes/" prefix; references of other
               types are never considered. If given multiple times, a list of
               patterns will be accumulated and tags matching any of the
               patterns will be excluded. When combined with --match a tag
               will be considered when it matches at least one --match
               pattern and does not match any of the --exclude patterns. Use
               **--no-exclude** to clear and reset the list of patterns.
    
           --always
               Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.
    
           --first-parent
               Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge
               commit. This is useful when you wish to not match tags on
               branches merged in the history of the target commit.
    


## EXAMPLES



           With something like git.git current tree, I get:
    
               [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent
               v1.0.4-14-g2414721
    
           i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
           but since it has a few commits on top of that, describe has added
           the number of additional commits ("14") and an abbreviated object
           name for the commit itself ("2414721") at the end.
    
           The number of additional commits is the number of commits which
           would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent". The hash suffix is
           "-g" + an unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit of parent
           (which was **2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6**). The length
           of the abbreviation scales as the repository grows, using the
           approximate number of objects in the repository and a bit of math
           around the birthday paradox, and defaults to a minimum of 7. 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:
    
               [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
               v1.0.4
    
           With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so the
           output shows the reference path as well:
    
               [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
               tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b
    
               [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^
               heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
    
           With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the
           closest tagname without any suffix:
    
               [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
               tags/v1.0.0
    
           Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may
           be longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as
           your Git repository may have new commits whose object names begin
           with 975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone
           may not be sufficient to disambiguate these commits.
    


## SEARCH STRATEGY



           For each commit-ish 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
           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 commit-ish’s SHA-1. If **--first-parent**
           was specified then the walk will only consider the first parent of
           each commit.
    
           If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which has
           the fewest commits different from the input commit-ish will be
           selected and output. Here fewest commits different is defined as
           the number of commits which would be shown by **git log tag..input**
           will be the smallest number of commits possible.
    


## BUGS



           Tree objects as well as tag objects not pointing at commits,
           cannot be described. When describing blobs, the lightweight tags
           pointing at blobs are ignored, but the blob is still described as
           <commit-ish>:<path> despite the lightweight tag being favorable.
    


## GIT



           Part of the git(1) suite
    


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