A simpler way to do this, especially if you do tagging in your repositories, is to use `git describe`. For example:

    $ git describe --dirty
    v1.4.1-1-gde18fe90-dirty

If the repo isn't dirty, then the hash you get excludes that part:

    $ git describe --dirty
    v1.4.1-1-gde18fe90

The other nice thing about this is that, if the repo is not -dirty, you can use the output from `git describe` in other git commands to reference that commit:

    $ git show -s v1.4.1-1-gde18fe90
    commit de18fe907edda2f2854e9813fcfbda9df902d8f1 (HEAD -> 1.4.1-release, origin/HEAD, origin/1.4.1-release)
    Author: rockowitz <rockowitz@minsoft.com>
    Date:   Sun May 28 17:09:46 2023 -0400

        Create codacy.yml

`git describe` is great.

Also, if you don't feel ready to commit to tagging your repository you can start with the `--always` flag which falls back to just the short commit hash.

The article's script isn't far from `git describe --always --dirty`, which can be a good place to start, and then it gets better as you start tagging.

The one caveat to this is that you must perform a sufficiently-deep clone that you can actually reach the tag.