git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: "man git-tag" inconsistent about whether you can tag non-commit objects

From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date
May 25, 2018, 01:38 UTC
Message-ID
<xmqqpo1kpl9i.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To
<alpine.LFD.2.21.1805241040400.14773@localhost.localdomain>
"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> writes:
Show 25 quoted lines
>   embarrassed to admit i had no idea that you could tag non-commit
> objects, only realized that when i was reading the man page and saw:
>
>   SYNOPSIS
>      git tag [-a | -s | -u <keyid>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] [-e]
>            <tagname> [<commit> | <object>]
>                                  ^^^^^^^^
>
> so i tried it and, sure enough, i could tag a blob object. but if you
> read further into DESCRIPTION, about halfway through, you read:
>
>   "Otherwise just a tag reference for the SHA-1 object name of the
>    commit object is created (i.e. a lightweight tag)."
>    ^^^^^^
>
> which suggests only commit objects. finally, much further down, under
> OPTIONS:
>
>   "<commit>, <object>
>      The object that the new tag will refer to, usually a commit.
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> so to clean this up, is it sufficient to just change that middle line
> to say "object" rather than "commit object"? or is there more in the
> man page that needs tweaking?

As that sentence talks about a lightweight tag (i.e. a reference in refs/tags/ hierarchy that directly points at an object of any kind), another possibility would be to say

	Otherwise a tag reference that directly points at the given
	object (i.e. lightweight tag) is created.
Previous: Robert P. J. DayNext: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
Message 2 of 5 in “"man git-tag" inconsistent about whether you can tag non-commit objects”
  1. Robert P. J. DayMay 24, 2018
  2. Junio C HamanoMay 25, 2018
  3. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMay 25, 2018
  4. Junio C HamanoMay 25, 2018
  5. Robert P. J. DayMay 25, 2018

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.