3 ms·

Annotated tags affect their own sha (because they actually have one, non-annotated tags do not), but they don't affect the commit you tag in any way. Otherwise

by Groxx 4y ago

Annotated tags affect their own sha (because they actually have one, non-annotated tags do not), but they don't affect the commit you tag in any way. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to add them at a later date - it'd change that commit's sha. If you move a tag, annotated or no, the .git/refs/tags/x file will contain the new sha it points to... but the history of that `x` is not stored anywhere. The fact that it used to point to [old sha] is gone for good, and the old sha will eventually get garbage collected (via pruning), just like if you remove a branch.

lamontcg 4y ago
Oh that's weird, I always thought the next commit would have its gitsha affected by the annotated tag and you couldn't just delete it, but I just tried that and it deleted fine... Now I'm not sure what the point is of annotated tags other than the default git describe behavior. Everyone else can enjoy Cunningham's Law working like a charm.
- Groxx 4y ago
  I think it's at least partly for providing a storage location for after-commit release signatures. You can't modify the commit to add the release-signer signature, and many things will want direct access to it, so you need/want a publicly-identifiable commit-pointer of some kind: tags. Off at the less-structured side of things though, have you seen git notes? You can add notes to any commit: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes . Tags are kinda just notes with a display name. At times I've wished that code review feedback were just stored in notes, so it'd survive changing hosting systems... but they're not quite reasonable for that :| What I think I really want is a notes tree under any commit, which kinda exists since you can add notes to notes, but there isn't really enough structure or tooling to support that kind of use out-of-the-box.

by Groxx 4y ago

lamontcg 4y ago

Oh that's weird, I always thought the next commit would have its gitsha affected by the annotated tag and you couldn't just delete it, but I just tried that and it deleted fine... Now I'm not sure what the point is of annotated tags other than the default git describe behavior. Everyone else can enjoy Cunningham's Law working like a charm.

Groxx 4y ago
I think it's at least partly for providing a storage location for after-commit release signatures. You can't modify the commit to add the release-signer signature, and many things will want direct access to it, so you need/want a publicly-identifiable commit-pointer of some kind: tags. Off at the less-structured side of things though, have you seen git notes? You can add notes to any commit: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes . Tags are kinda just notes with a display name. At times I've wished that code review feedback were just stored in notes, so it'd survive changing hosting systems... but they're not quite reasonable for that :| What I think I really want is a notes tree under any commit, which kinda exists since you can add notes to notes, but there isn't really enough structure or tooling to support that kind of use out-of-the-box.