Git alternatives to "svn info" that can be included in a build for traceability?

Question

I'm looking for a Git alternatives to "svn info".

Today I added some information that Subversion gives me with the "svn info" command right into my build, and that is then pushed into a source file that prints this during startup. That way I always know where that build came from and how to get it back again.

If you have "svn info" like URL, Repository Root, Repository UUID and the Revision, you have a good link between what is deployed and the buildsystem. And if someone reports a bug you know where that software came from, and since that information was automatically included, the risk of human error is smaller.

Now the question is, what information do I need to get from Git so I can later identify where that build came from? And how do I use that information to switch back to exactly that version?

(Maybe I need to add some information about the "build computer" as well since Git is distributed.)

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Update: Using rev-parse was really useful, and I got something like this:

cj@zap:~/git_test$ git rev-parse HEAD 72ce5f3e13c61f76fde5c58cefc85eed91b6f1f8 

And with that magic number it is later possible to do:

cj@zap:~/git_test$ git checkout 72ce5f3e13c61f76fde5c58cefc85eed91b6f1f8 

And I am back where I was.

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Update: I think that if I take some parts from that scripts VonC provided and put them into my buildfile I will get the result I was looking for.

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Update:

A note on "git describe". You need a real tag (tag -a) earlier in you branch history to make this work or you will get something like this.

fatal: cannot describe '72ce5f3e13c61f76fde5c58cefc85eed91b6f1f8' 

The problem is also described in Git Tag Does the Wrong Thing by Default.

But please note that a checkout seems to work anyway, even though that was an error message.

git checkout 72ce5f3e13c61f76fde5c58cefc85eed91b6f1f8 

The normal thing though seems to be that you create something like a "ver1.0" tag, and then if you continue to work you get something like this:

cj@zap:~/git_test$ git describe  ver1.0-2-g4c7a057 cj@zap:~/git_test$ git tag -a ver2.0 cj@zap:~/git_test$ git describe  ver2.0 cj@zap:~/git_test$ git commit . -m "something..." Created commit ac38a9d: something...  1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) cj@zap:~/git_test$ git describe  ver2.0-1-gac38a9d 

So when you use describe correctly it does work and may produce a more human-readable results, and it can be really useful as well.

Answer 1

I know the answer is already accepted but this may help someone who is looking for remote and branch information.

 git remote show origin