How do I use the 'git describe' information to find a specific commit?

Question

If I do 'git describe' in my directory I get the output: 1.0-24-g31cdd0f

How does one do a checkout at this same point in the revision tree after it is no longer HEAD? How does one see the log for the 24 commits since the tag?

Answer 1

I disagree with the second part of the answer provided by Greg Hewgill.

Output : 1.0-24-g31cdd0f means that "1.0" is the latest reachable tag and it is 24 commits away from the recent commit "31cdd0f". So, doing git log 31cdd0f.. will not print anything. Because "31cdd0f" is the recent commit and leaving empty after ".." shows all commits till the recent commit.

The correct command should be

git log 1.0..31cdd0f

. This will show all commits between the tag "1.0" and recent commit "31cdd0f".

Sources:

https://schacon.github.io/git/git-describe.html

https://schacon.github.io/git/git-log.html

Answer 2

The commit that is tagged is the last part without the "g", so 31cdd0f. You can checkout with:

git checkout 31cdd0f

or view the log of commits since the tag 1.0 with

git log 1.0..31cdd0f