"git describe" documentation and behavior mismatch

From: Daniel Knittl-Frank <knittl89@googlemail.com>
Date: Nov 30, 2017, 18:47 UTC
Message-ID: <CACx-yZ10GiDT=dDeF1EUtM_K4nGd414SDfxLRqGWyXt0ub02Gg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Git list,

the help page/manpage of the git describe command has an example with the --all flag which should prepend the ref namespace (tags/ or heads/):

Show 7 quoted lines

> 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

Running the above commands in the git.git repository yields a different result:

>     $ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
>     v1.0.0-21-g975b3

No "reference path" to see. It is however shown, when the output is a branch name:

>     $ git describe --all --abbrev=4 origin/next
>     heads/next

Is this expected behavior? IOW is the documentation outdated or is the git describe command misbehaving?

Thanks, Daniel

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