From: Jeff King Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:06:02 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCHv3] git-tag man: when to use lightweight or annotated tags Message-ID: <20130726190602.GC29799@sigill.intra.peff.net> In-Reply-To: <51F2B2CD.1030004@gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 07:33:01PM +0200, Daniele Segato wrote: > stress the difference between the two with suggestion on when the user > should use one in place of the other. > > Signed-off-by: Daniele Segato The intent of your patch seems reasonable to me. There are a few minor language and typographical mistakes, and the patch itself is whitespace-damaged. I also do not know that it is accurate to say "most git commands ignore lightweight tags". It is really only "naming" ones like "git describe". Here is a re-send of your patch with the fixups I would recommend. -- >8 -- From: Daniele Segato Subject: [PATCH] docs/git-tag: explain lightweight versus annotated tags Stress the difference between the two with a suggestion on when the user should use one in place of the other. Signed-off-by: Daniele Segato Signed-off-by: Jeff King --- Documentation/git-tag.txt | 11 +++++++++++ 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/git-tag.txt b/Documentation/git-tag.txt index 22894cb..c418c44 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-tag.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-tag.txt @@ -42,6 +42,17 @@ is used to specify custom GnuPG binary. GnuPG key for signing. The configuration variable `gpg.program` is used to specify custom GnuPG binary. +Tag objects (created with `-a`, `s`, or `-u`) are called "annotated" +tags; they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a +tagging message, and an optional GnuPG signature. Whereas a +"lightweight" tag is simply a name for an object (usually a commit +object). + +Annotated tags are meant for release while lightweight tags are meant +for private or temporary object labels. For this reason, some git +commands for naming objects (like `git describe`) will ignore +lightweight tags by default. + OPTIONS ------- -- 1.8.3.rc1.30.gff0fb75