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GIT-DESCRIBE(1)			  Git Manual		       GIT-DESCRIBE(1)

NAME
       git-describe - Describe a commit	using the most recent tag reachable
       from it

SYNOPSIS
       git describe [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] [<commit-ish>...]
       git describe [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>]

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.

       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).

OPTIONS
       <commit-ish>...
	   Commit-ish object names to describe.	Defaults to HEAD if omitted.

       --dirty[=<mark>]
	   Describe the	working	tree. It means describe	HEAD and appends
	   <mark> (-dirty by default) if the working tree is dirty.

       --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	7 hexadecimal digits as	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. This can be	used to	avoid leaking private
	   tags	from the repository.

       --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" +
       7-char abbreviation for the tip commit of parent	(which was
       2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6). 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.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.9.0			  06/13/2016		       GIT-DESCRIBE(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | SEARCH STRATEGY | GIT

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