git version

Sometimes the answer is 'upgrade'.

🎯 What & why

Print the installed Git version, optionally with the full set of compile-time options. The first thing to check when a feature 'doesn't work'.

🧠 Mental model

Git's behavior depends not just on version number but on what was compiled in: hash backend (SHA-1 vs SHA-256), TLS library, zlib, curl, and feature toggles. --build-options exposes that surface.

🛠️ Synopsis

git version [--build-options]
git --version

Prints 'git version X.Y.Z' to stdout. With --build-options, adds CPU,
sizeof-* values, hash backend (sha1: collisiondetect / openssl), and
selected library versions.

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--build-options`	Append compile-time details: CPU arch, sizeof-long/size_t, sha1/sha256 backend implementations.
`(no args)`	Print just the version string.

💡 Use cases

Bug reports - upstream maintainers will ask for git version --build-options first.
Feature gating in scripts: parse the version to decide whether git switch or git checkout is available.
Diagnosing hash collision behavior - is this Git linked against collisiondetect or raw SHA-1?
Confirming a corporate Git distribution matches what the docs assume.

🧪 Examples

Quick check

git version

Full build details

git version --build-options

Equivalent global flag

git --version

Script gate (require >= 2.23)

ver=$(git version | awk '{print $3}'); [ "$(printf '%s\n2.23.0\n' "$ver" | sort -V | head -1)" = "2.23.0" ] || echo 'upgrade git'

🎓 Recommendations

When in doubt, the answer is 'upgrade Git'. Distributions ship versions that are years old; install from git-scm.com or your platform's modern source.
Always include --build-options output in bug reports - 'works for me' is often a build-option difference.
In scripts, parse with sort -V (version sort) rather than naive string compare; '2.10.0' < '2.9.0' lexicographically but not semantically.

🪤 Common pitfalls

git --version and git version differ subtly in how Git's option parser handles them, but the output is the same; pick one and stick with it.
Vendor-patched Git (Apple, RHEL, GitHub Desktop) may report a base version while behaving differently due to backports - --build-options helps but doesn't always reveal patches.
On Windows, Git for Windows version is not the same as the underlying Git version; check both.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.