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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-describe.txt | 14 |
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt index a88f6ae2c6..c6a79c2a0f 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt @@ -63,9 +63,10 @@ OPTIONS 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 + 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>:: @@ -139,8 +140,11 @@ 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" + unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit -of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`). +The hash suffix is "-g" + an unambigous 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. |