Re: [PATCH 1/2] pretty: add %(describe)

On Sun, Feb 14 2021, René Scharfe wrote:

Add a format placeholder for describe output.  Implement it by actually
calling git describe, which is simple and guarantees correctness.  It's
intended to be used with $Format:...$ in files with the attribute
export-subst and git archive. 

Does it really guarantee correctness though? In "builtin/describe.c" we
first walk over the refs and use that to format all N items we're asked
about.

Under "git log" this is presumably in a race where refs added/deleted
during the run of "git log" will change the describe output to be
inconsistent with earlier lines.

It can also be used with git log etc., even though that's going to be
slow due to the fork for each commit.