Sort git tags like a pro
If you like me use semantic versioning and have projects with a gazillion version tags, it’s nice to be able sort the tags in various ways. Let’s see how to sort Git tags like a pro.
If you type git tag to list all tags, you will notice that the default sort order is alphabetic, which messes up higher version segments:
1.0.0
1.1.0
1.10.0
1.2.0
1.3.0
1.4.0
1.5.0
1.6.0
1.7.0
1.8.0
1.9.0
To sort the tags by ascending semver number, you can instead use git tag --sort v:refname to get the following result:
1.0.0
1.1.0
1.2.0
1.3.0
1.4.0
1.5.0
1.6.0
1.7.0
1.8.0
1.9.0
1.10.0
If you like me have repositories with many version tags, you may also want to sort the tags in descending orders. Not to worry, just type git tag --sort -v:refname instead:
1.10.0
1.9.0
1.8.0
1.7.0
1.6.0
1.5.0
1.4.0
1.3.0
1.2.0
1.1.0
1.0.0
If you always want to use a certain sort order, you can just set the tag.sort setting to the sort order of your choice. For instance, this Terminal command makes Git use descending order for all repos:
git config --global tag.sort -v:refname
That’s it, you’re now a Git tag sorting pro! 🎉
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