Change naming convention of tags inside a git repository?

Question

I have a git repository which contains a number of tags with the format "v1.2.3-rc-4" which I would like to automatically rename to "1.2.3-rc4". The tags exist in both the local and remote repositories.

I should clarify that the numeric components in the version number should be treated as variables. The above values are simply to demonstrate the format of the tags.

Is there a way to automate this change?

Answer 1

To list all tags, I would recommend git for-each-ref with the --shell option to eval refs.
Combine it with a one-liner to rename/delete a tag.

#!/bin/sh

git for-each-ref --shell --format="ref=%(refname:short)" refs/tags | \
while read entry
do

    # assign tag name to $ref variable
    eval "$entry"

    # test if $ref starts with v
    ref2="${ref#v}"
    if [[ "${ref}" != "${ref2}" ]]; then

        # rename/delete tag
        git push origin refs/tags/${ref}:refs/tags/${ref2} :refs/tags/${ref}
        git tag -d ${ref}
    fi

done

Answer 2

Follow the 3 step approach for a one or a few number of tags. For large number of tags the above script can be modified to use the below 3 steps as an alternative solution.

Step 1: Identify the commit/object ID of the commit the current tag is pointing to

     command: git rev-parse <tag name>
     example: git rev-parse v0.1.0-Demo
     example output: db57b63b77a6bae3e725cbb9025d65fa1eabcde

Step 2: Delete the tag from the repository

     command: git tag -d <tag name>
     example: git tag -d v0.1.0-Demo
     example output: Deleted tag 'v0.1.0-Demo' (was abcde)

Step 3: Create a new tag pointing to the same commit id as the old tag was pointing to

     command: git tag -a <tag name>  -m "appropriate message" <commit id>
     example: git tag -a v0.1.0-full  -m "renamed from v0.1.0-Demo" db57b63b77a6bae3e725cbb9025d65fa1eabcde
     example output: Nothing or basically <No error>

Once the local git is ready with the tag name change, these changes can be pushed back to the origin for others to take these.