How to get latest git tag or commit ID (shell)

git_tag_or_version_sh.md

How to get latest git tag or commit ID (shell)

The following will give you the latest git tag name (if the HEAD is tagged) or latest commit ID otherwise. After execution the X_VERSION variable holds the end value.

Why is this useful?

I use it to name packages of my builds and other versioning purposes. See example here.

The script:

X_GIT_COMMITID=`git rev-parse --short HEAD | tr -d "\n" | sed 's/ //g'`
X_GIT_TAG=`git tag --points-at $X_GIT_COMMITID | tr -d "\n" | sed 's/ //g'`
if [ -n "$X_GIT_TAG" ]; then
  X_VERSION="$X_GIT_TAG"
else
  X_VERSION="git-$X_GIT_COMMITID"
fi
echo $X_VERSION