describe: Make --tags and --all match lightweight tags more often

[git.git] / Documentation / git-describe.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
index b6c86c2aeaa33cb2d72863dfdbaecc887ef1aa5b..3d79f05995d28214f68640dd3f693033dff03547 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
@@ -18,19 +18,24 @@ shown.  Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of
 additional commits on top of the tagged object and the
 abbreviated object name of the most recent commit.
 
+By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows
+annotated tags.  For more information about creating annotated tags
+see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1].
 
 OPTIONS
 -------
-<committish>::
-       The object name of the committish.
+<committish>...::
+       Committish object names to describe.
 
 --all::
        Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
-       found in `.git/refs/`.
+       found in `.git/refs/`.  This option enables matching
+       any known branch, remote branch, or lightweight tag.
 
 --tags::
        Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
-       found in `.git/refs/tags`.
+       found in `.git/refs/tags`.  This option enables matching
+       a lightweight (non-annotated) tag.
 
 --contains::
        Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find
@@ -92,7 +97,7 @@ of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
 The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
 of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
 
-Doing a "git-describe" on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
+Doing a 'git-describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
 
        [torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
        v1.0.4
@@ -115,13 +120,13 @@ closest tagname without any suffix:
 SEARCH STRATEGY
 ---------------
 
-For each committish supplied "git-describe" will first look for
+For each committish supplied, 'git-describe' will first look for
 a tag which tags exactly that commit.  Annotated tags will always
 be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
 always be preferred over tags with older dates.  If an exact match
 is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
 
-If an exact match was not found "git-describe" will walk back
+If an exact match was not found, 'git-describe' will walk back
 through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
 has been tagged.  The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
 abbreviation of the input committish's SHA1.
@@ -129,14 +134,14 @@ abbreviation of the input committish's SHA1.
 If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which
 has the fewest commits different from the input committish will be
 selected and output.  Here fewest commits different is defined as
-the number of commits which would be shown by "git log tag..input"
+the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input`
 will be the smallest number of commits possible.
 
 
 Author
 ------
 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, but somewhat
-butchered by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>.  Later significantly
+butchered by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>.  Later significantly
 updated by Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>.
 
 Documentation