Documentation/git-describe.txt

git-describe(1)
===============

NAME
----
git-describe - Show the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit


SYNOPSIS
--------
'git-describe' [--all] [--tags] [--abbrev=<n>] <committish>...

DESCRIPTION
-----------
The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a
commit, and if the commit itself is pointed at by the tag, shows
the tag.  Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with abbreviated
object name of the commit.


OPTIONS
-------
<committish>::
	The object name of the comittish. 

--all::
	Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
	found in `.git/refs/`.

--tags::
	Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
	found in `.git/refs/tags`.

--abbrev=<n>::
	Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
	abbreviated object name, use <n> digits.


EXAMPLES
--------

With something like git.git current tree, I get:

	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git-describe parent
	v1.0.4-g2414721b

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, it has added the
git hash of the thing to the end: "-g" + 8-char shorthand for
the commit `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`.

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-g975b

	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all HEAD^
	heads/lt/describe-g975b


Author
------
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, but somewhat
butchered by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>

Documentation
--------------
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

GIT
---
Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite