# git-describe: what is the '-g' prefix good for?

2 messages from 2009-07-16 to 2009-07-16. Participants: Dirk Süsserott, Avery Pennarun.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/20134

## Dirk Süsserott, 2009-07-16 16:20

Subject: git-describe: what is the '-g' prefix good for?
Message-ID: <4A5F5340.9030908@dirk.my1.cc>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4A5F5340.9030908%40dirk.my1.cc

```
Hello there,

I'm a bit surprised about the output of git-describe: if I'm on a tag,
git-describe tells the tag's name. Fine. If I commit sth. on top of
that, it tells how far I'm away from that tag and the current commit's
SHA1. Very fine. But then the SHA1 is preceeded with a '-g'. What's that
for?

I really don't want to ask for dropping it (I guess all people rely
on it), but does anybody know about the initial intention of that '-g'?
Cannot be easier parsing in porcelain scripts because either way the
actual state is unambiguously.

Just a curious
     Dirk

```

## Avery Pennarun, 2009-07-16 17:47

Subject: Re: git-describe: what is the '-g' prefix good for?
Message-ID: <32541b130907161047h7df7fa4dsfa61ed65789f4c01@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/32541b130907161047h7df7fa4dsfa61ed65789f4c01%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <4A5F5340.9030908@dirk.my1.cc>

```
2009/7/16 Dirk Süsserott <newsletter@dirk.my1.cc>:
> I'm a bit surprised about the output of git-describe: if I'm on a tag,
> git-describe tells the tag's name. Fine. If I commit sth. on top of
> that, it tells how far I'm away from that tag and the current commit's
> SHA1. Very fine. But then the SHA1 is preceeded with a '-g'. What's that
> for?

I'm sure it stands for something like "git".  You don't want a random
number appended to your tagname (which is often a version number)
because it might be mistaken for part of the version number.  The g
makes this less likely.  It also differentiates between git and any
other version control system (except ones starting with 'g', I guess
:)) that might implement a similar feature.

Avery

```