# git-describe hash length

4 messages from 2009-01-22 to 2009-01-23. Participants: Martin Pirker, Tomas Carnecky, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr., Junio C Hamano.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/17302

## Martin Pirker, 2009-01-22 11:26

Subject: git-describe hash length
Message-ID: <497857CE.3060101@iaik.tugraz.at>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/497857CE.3060101%40iaik.tugraz.at

```
Hi!


john@doe:/workspace$ git version
git version 1.6.1
john@doe:/workspace$ git describe
fatal: cannot describe '7aee61cc635a923e70b74091486742481ee0928b'
john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always
7aee61c
john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always --abbrev=8
7aee61cc


man git-describe:

  --abbrev=<n>
      Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
      abbreviated object name, use <n> digits.



There is one character missing from default or what am I missing?

Thanks,
Martin

```

## Tomas Carnecky, 2009-01-22 12:34

Subject: Re: git-describe hash length
Message-ID: <497867BE.8070509@dbservice.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/497867BE.8070509%40dbservice.com
In-Reply-To: <497857CE.3060101@iaik.tugraz.at>

```
On 01/22/2009 12:26 PM, Martin Pirker wrote:
> Hi!
>
>
> john@doe:/workspace$ git version
> git version 1.6.1
> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe
> fatal: cannot describe '7aee61cc635a923e70b74091486742481ee0928b'
> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always
> 7aee61c
> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always --abbrev=8
> 7aee61cc
>
>
> man git-describe:
>
>    --abbrev=<n>
>        Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
>        abbreviated object name, use<n>  digits.
>
>
>
> There is one character missing from default or what am I missing?

The man page is wrong:

cache.h:#define DEFAULT_ABBREV 7
builtin-describe.c:static int abbrev = DEFAULT_ABBREV;

tom

```

## Boyd Stephen Smith Jr., 2009-01-22 18:26

Subject: [PATCH] Fix Documentation for git-describe
Message-ID: <200901221226.25342.bss@iguanasuicide.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/200901221226.25342.bss%40iguanasuicide.net
In-Reply-To: <497867BE.8070509@dbservice.com>

```
The documentation for git-describe says the default abbreviation is 8
hexadecimal digits while cache.c clearly shows DEFAULT_ABBREV set to 7.
This patch corrects the documentation.

Signed-off-by: Boyd Stephen Smith Jr <bss@iguanasuicide.net>
---
On Thursday 2009 January 22 06:34:06 Tomas Carnecky wrote:
>On 01/22/2009 12:26 PM, Martin Pirker wrote:
>> john@doe:/workspace$ git version
>> git version 1.6.1
>> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe
>> fatal: cannot describe '7aee61cc635a923e70b74091486742481ee0928b'
>> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always
>> 7aee61c
>> john@doe:/workspace$ git describe --always --abbrev=8
>> 7aee61cc
>>
>> man git-describe:
>>    --abbrev=<n>
>>        Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
>>        abbreviated object name, use<n>  digits.
>>
>> There is one character missing from default or what am I missing?
>
>The man page is wrong:
>
>cache.h:#define DEFAULT_ABBREV 7
>builtin-describe.c:static int abbrev = DEFAULT_ABBREV;

Let's fix it then!  This is a patch against maint.

Is there any way to include values from the source as text in the ascidoc
other than copy-and-paste?  It would be nice if we don't have to do this fix
again in the future.

I did a quick scan of 'git grep 8 -- Documentation' and didn't see
anywhere else this needed fixing.

 Documentation/git-describe.txt |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
index 3d79f05..a30c5ac 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ OPTIONS
 	Automatically implies --tags.
 
 --abbrev=<n>::
-	Instead of using the default 8 hexadecimal digits as the
+	Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the
 	abbreviated object name, use <n> digits.
 
 --candidates=<n>::
-- 
1.6.0.2
-- 
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.                     ,= ,-_-. =. 
bss@iguanasuicide.net                     ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy           `-'(. .)`-' 
http://iguanasuicide.net/                      \_/     

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2009-01-23 09:36

Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix Documentation for git-describe
Message-ID: <7v1vuuz7mt.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7v1vuuz7mt.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org
In-Reply-To: <200901221226.25342.bss@iguanasuicide.net>

```
Thanks.

```