[thirdparty/git.git] / Documentation / git-tag.txt

git-tag(1)
==========

NAME
----
git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG


SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git tag' [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>]  <name> [<head>]
'git tag' -d <name>...
'git tag' [-n[<num>]] -l [<pattern>]
'git tag' -v <name>...

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Adds a 'tag' reference in `.git/refs/tags/`

Unless `-f` is given, the tag must not yet exist in
`.git/refs/tags/` directory.

If one of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` is passed, the command
creates a 'tag' object, and requires the tag message.  Unless
`-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given, an editor is started for the user to type
in the tag message.

If `-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given and `-a`, `-s`, and `-u <key-id>`
are absent, `-a` is implied.

Otherwise just the SHA1 object name of the commit object is
written (i.e. a lightweight tag).

A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u
<key-id>` is used.  When `-u <key-id>` is not used, the
committer identity for the current user is used to find the
GnuPG key for signing.

OPTIONS
-------
-a::
	Make an unsigned, annotated tag object

-s::
	Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address's key

-u <key-id>::
	Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key

-f::
	Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing)

-d::
	Delete existing tags with the given names.

-v::
	Verify the gpg signature of the given tag names.

-n<num>::
	<num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any,
	are printed when using -l.
	The default is not to print any annotation lines.
	If no number is given to `-n`, only the first line is printed.

-l <pattern>::
	List tags with names that match the given pattern (or all if no pattern is given).
	Typing "git tag" without arguments, also lists all tags.

-m <msg>::
	Use the given tag message (instead of prompting).
	If multiple `-m` options are given, there values are
	concatenated as separate paragraphs.
	Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>`
	is given.

-F <file>::
	Take the tag message from the given file.  Use '-' to
	read the message from the standard input.
	Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>`
	is given.

CONFIGURATION
-------------
By default, git-tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your
committer identity (of the form "Your Name <your@email.address>") to
find a key.  If you want to use a different default key, you can specify
it in the repository configuration as follows:

-------------------------------------
[user]
    signingkey = <gpg-key-id>
-------------------------------------


DISCUSSION
----------

On Re-tagging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would
want to re-tag?

If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to
replace the old one. And you're done.

But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read
your repository directly), then others will have already seen
the old tag. In that case you can do one of two things:

. The sane thing.
Just admit you screwed up, and use a different name. Others have
already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the same name, you
may be in the situation that two people both have "version X",
but they actually have 'different' "X"'s.  So just call it "X.1"
and be done with it.

. The insane thing.
You really want to call the new version "X" too, 'even though'
others have already seen the old one. So just use "git-tag -f"
again, as if you hadn't already published the old one.

However, Git does *not* (and it should not) change tags behind
users back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a
"git-pull" on your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old
one.

If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change
the tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big
security issue, in that people MUST be able to trust their
tag-names.  If you really want to do the insane thing, you need
to just fess up to it, and tell people that you messed up. You
can do that by making a very public announcement saying:

------------
Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I
then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again.

If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete
the old one and fetch the new one by doing:

	git tag -d X
	git fetch origin tag X

to get my updated tag.

You can test which tag you have by doing

	git rev-parse X

which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version.

Sorry for inconvenience.
------------

Does this seem a bit complicated?  It *should* be. There is no
way that it would be correct to just "fix" it behind peoples
backs. People need to know that their tags might have been
changed.


On Automatic following
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely
using tracking branches (`refs/heads/origin` in traditional
layout, or `refs/remotes/origin/master` in the separate-remote
layout).  You usually want the tags from the other end.

On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a
one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to
get tags from there.  This happens more often for people near
the toplevel but not limited to them.  Mere mortals when pulling
from each other do not necessarily want to automatically get
private anchor point tags from the other person.

You would notice "please pull" messages on the mailing list says
repo URL and branch name alone.  This is designed to be easily
cut&pasted to "git-fetch" command line:

------------
Linus, please pull from

	git://git..../proj.git master

to get the following updates...
------------

becomes:

------------
$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master
------------

In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow other's
tags.

One important aspect of git is it is distributed, and being
distributed largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or
"downstream" in the system.  On the face of it, the above
example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned
by upper echelon of people and tags only flow downwards, but
that is not the case.  It only shows that the usage pattern
determines who are interested in whose tags.

A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing
the boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are
primarily interested in networking part of the kernel") who may
have their own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release
candidate from the networking group to be proposed for general
consumption with 2.6.21 release") to another circle of people
(e.g. "people who integrate various subsystem improvements").
The latter are usually not interested in the detailed tags used
internally in the former group (that is what "internal" means).
That is why it is desirable not to follow tags automatically in
this case.

It may well be that among networking people, they may want to
exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow
they are most likely tracking with each other's progress by
having tracking branches.  Again, the heuristic to automatically
follow such tags is a good thing.


On Backdating Tags
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like
to add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able
to specify the date to embed inside of the tag object.  The data in
the tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the
gitweb interface.

To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment
variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE to one or more of the date and time.  The
date and time can be specified in a number of ways; the most common
is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM".

An example follows.

------------
$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1
------------


Author
------
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>,
Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and Chris Wright <chrisw@osdl.org>.

Documentation
--------------
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
Commit	Line	Data
215a7ad1 JH	1	git-tag(1)
215a7ad1 JH	2	==========
2cf565c5 DG	3
	4	NAME
	5	----
453c1e85	6	git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG
2cf565c5 DG	7
2cf565c5 DG	8
2cf565c5 DG	9	SYNOPSIS
2cf565c5 DG	10	--------
b867c7c2	11	[verse]
b1889c36 JN	12	'git tag' [-a \| -s \| -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> \| -F <file>] <name> [<head>]
	13	'git tag' -d <name>...
	14	'git tag' [-n[<num>]] -l [<pattern>]
	15	'git tag' -v <name>...
2cf565c5 DG	16
	17	DESCRIPTION
	18	-----------
b867c7c2	19	Adds a 'tag' reference in `.git/refs/tags/`
b7e438f9	20
bc162e40 LT	21	Unless `-f` is given, the tag must not yet exist in
bc162e40 LT	22	`.git/refs/tags/` directory.
b7e438f9	23
bc162e40 LT	24	If one of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>` is passed, the command
bc162e40 LT	25	creates a 'tag' object, and requires the tag message. Unless
62e09ce9	26	`-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given, an editor is started for the user to type
bc162e40	27	in the tag message.
b7e438f9	28
995e8df4 DS	29	If `-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given and `-a`, `-s`, and `-u <key-id>`
	30	are absent, `-a` is implied.
	31
bc162e40	32	Otherwise just the SHA1 object name of the commit object is
56b5e946	33	written (i.e. a lightweight tag).
bc162e40 LT	34
	35	A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u
	36	<key-id>` is used. When `-u <key-id>` is not used, the
	37	committer identity for the current user is used to find the
	38	GnuPG key for signing.
2cf565c5	39
d839091d NW	40	OPTIONS
	41	-------
	42	-a::
	43	Make an unsigned, annotated tag object
	44
	45	-s::
	46	Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address's key
	47
	48	-u <key-id>::
	49	Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key
	50
	51	-f::
	52	Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing)
	53
	54	-d::
453c1e85	55	Delete existing tags with the given names.
d839091d	56
0bc72abd	57	-v::
62e09ce9	58	Verify the gpg signature of the given tag names.
0bc72abd	59
3f36cbba	60	-n<num>::
980ea5c5 MM	61	<num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any,
	62	are printed when using -l.
	63	The default is not to print any annotation lines.
62e09ce9	64	If no number is given to `-n`, only the first line is printed.
980ea5c5	65
b867c7c2	66	-l <pattern>::
980ea5c5	67	List tags with names that match the given pattern (or all if no pattern is given).
62e09ce9	68	Typing "git tag" without arguments, also lists all tags.
b867c7c2	69
d839091d	70	-m <msg>::
bd46c9a9 JH	71	Use the given tag message (instead of prompting).
	72	If multiple `-m` options are given, there values are
	73	concatenated as separate paragraphs.
995e8df4 DS	74	Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>`
995e8df4 DS	75	is given.
d839091d	76
f79c73ce JS	77	-F <file>::
	78	Take the tag message from the given file. Use '-' to
	79	read the message from the standard input.
995e8df4 DS	80	Implies `-a` if none of `-a`, `-s`, or `-u <key-id>`
995e8df4 DS	81	is given.
2cf565c5	82
d67778ec AP	83	CONFIGURATION
	84	-------------
	85	By default, git-tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your
	86	committer identity (of the form "Your Name <your@email.address>") to
	87	find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can specify
	88	it in the repository configuration as follows:
	89
86b9e017	90	-------------------------------------
d67778ec AP	91	[user]
d67778ec AP	92	signingkey = <gpg-key-id>
86b9e017	93	-------------------------------------
d67778ec	94
4853534e JH	95
	96	DISCUSSION
	97	----------
	98
	99	On Re-tagging
	100	~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	101
	102	What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would
	103	want to re-tag?
	104
	105	If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to
	106	replace the old one. And you're done.
	107
	108	But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read
	109	your repository directly), then others will have already seen
	110	the old tag. In that case you can do one of two things:
	111
	112	. The sane thing.
	113	Just admit you screwed up, and use a different name. Others have
	114	already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the same name, you
	115	may be in the situation that two people both have "version X",
	116	but they actually have 'different' "X"'s. So just call it "X.1"
	117	and be done with it.
	118
	119	. The insane thing.
	120	You really want to call the new version "X" too, 'even though'
b1889c36	121	others have already seen the old one. So just use "git-tag -f"
4853534e JH	122	again, as if you hadn't already published the old one.
4853534e JH	123
06ada152	124	However, Git does not (and it should not) change tags behind
46e56e81	125	users back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a
b1889c36	126	"git-pull" on your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old
4853534e JH	127	one.
	128
	129	If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change
	130	the tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big
	131	security issue, in that people MUST be able to trust their
	132	tag-names. If you really want to do the insane thing, you need
	133	to just fess up to it, and tell people that you messed up. You
	134	can do that by making a very public announcement saying:
	135
	136	------------
	137	Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I
	138	then fixed something, and retagged the fixed tree as X again.
	139
	140	If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete
	141	the old one and fetch the new one by doing:
	142
	143	git tag -d X
	144	git fetch origin tag X
	145
	146	to get my updated tag.
	147
	148	You can test which tag you have by doing
	149
	150	git rev-parse X
	151
	152	which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version.
	153
	154	Sorry for inconvenience.
	155	------------
	156
	157	Does this seem a bit complicated? It should be. There is no
	158	way that it would be correct to just "fix" it behind peoples
	159	backs. People need to know that their tags might have been
	160	changed.
	161
	162
	163	On Automatic following
	164	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	165
	166	If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely
	167	using tracking branches (`refs/heads/origin` in traditional
	168	layout, or `refs/remotes/origin/master` in the separate-remote
	169	layout). You usually want the tags from the other end.
	170
	171	On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a
	172	one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to
	173	get tags from there. This happens more often for people near
	174	the toplevel but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling
	175	from each other do not necessarily want to automatically get
	176	private anchor point tags from the other person.
	177
	178	You would notice "please pull" messages on the mailing list says
	179	repo URL and branch name alone. This is designed to be easily
b1889c36	180	cut&pasted to "git-fetch" command line:
4853534e JH	181
	182	------------
	183	Linus, please pull from
	184
	185	git://git..../proj.git master
	186
	187	to get the following updates...
	188	------------
	189
	190	becomes:
	191
	192	------------
	193	$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master
	194	------------
	195
	196	In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow other's
	197	tags.
	198
	199	One important aspect of git is it is distributed, and being
	200	distributed largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or
	201	"downstream" in the system. On the face of it, the above
	202	example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned
	203	by upper echelon of people and tags only flow downwards, but
	204	that is not the case. It only shows that the usage pattern
	205	determines who are interested in whose tags.
	206
	207	A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing
	208	the boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are
	209	primarily interested in networking part of the kernel") who may
	210	have their own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release
	211	candidate from the networking group to be proposed for general
	212	consumption with 2.6.21 release") to another circle of people
	213	(e.g. "people who integrate various subsystem improvements").
	214	The latter are usually not interested in the detailed tags used
	215	internally in the former group (that is what "internal" means).
	216	That is why it is desirable not to follow tags automatically in
	217	this case.
	218
	219	It may well be that among networking people, they may want to
	220	exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow
	221	they are most likely tracking with each other's progress by
	222	having tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically
	223	follow such tags is a good thing.
	224
	225
5040beff MO	226	On Backdating Tags
	227	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	228
	229	If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like
	230	to add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able
	231	to specify the date to embed inside of the tag object. The data in
	232	the tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the
	233	gitweb interface.
	234
	235	To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment
055b6615	236	variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE to one or more of the date and time. The
5040beff MO	237	date and time can be specified in a number of ways; the most common
	238	is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM".
	239
	240	An example follows.
	241
	242	------------
055b6615	243	$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1
5040beff MO	244	------------
	245
	246
2cf565c5 DG	247	Author
2cf565c5 DG	248	------
3f971fc4 JH	249	Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>,
3f971fc4 JH	250	Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and Chris Wright <chrisw@osdl.org>.
2cf565c5 DG	251
	252	Documentation
	253	--------------
	254	Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
	255
	256	GIT
	257	---
9e1f0a85	258	Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite