From: Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:25:26 GMT
Subject: why the 'g' prefix on the SHA1 in git-describe output?
Message-ID: <871wb7a53d.fsf@rho.meyering.net>

Hello,

Can anyone tell me what motivated adding the 'g' prefix on the SHA1 in
git-describe output?  Is there some version-parsing/comparing tool that
misbehaves on a component like the SHA1 that would otherwise start with a
digit but contain non-numeric bytes, too?

Why do I ask?  Because I'm using a bastardized version of GIT-VERSION-GEN
in coreutils' build-aux/git-version-gen, and removed the 'g' to shorten
the string by a byte.  If there's a good reason (i.e., other than vanity :-)
for the 'g', I'll propose comments for GIT-VERSION-GEN, so others
don't do what I've done.

Jim