Re: Make "git status" show if on tag

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Oct 9, 2013, 19:01 UTC
Message-ID: <20131009190139.GB2823@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <387b8c28.601abe13.5255a661.c2c2f@o2.pl>

On Wed, Oct 09, 2013 at 08:54:25PM +0200, bpuzon wrote:

> I was wondering if a patch that adds the tag information (something
> like what "git log --decorate" produces) to the "git status" would be
> welcome?

Do you mean when you are on a branch that also happens to point at the same commit found at a tag? Or do you mean when you have detached your HEAD at a tag (e.g., by doing "git checkout v1.0").

In the latter case, git v1.8.3 and later will print the tag name already.

If the former, I don't have a strong opinion (it is not something I would find useful, but I can see how others might). If it were not intrusive, like:

  # On branch master (v1.0)

I don't think anybody would complain. It does involve enumerating all of the refs to calculate it, which might be noticeable. OTOH, "status" is not exactly a lightweight operation already, since it has to refresh the whole index.

You might also consider just showing "git describe" output, which will show a tag if you are on it, but also show your distance to the nearest tag otherwise. It is more expensive to calculate, though.

-Peff