Lightweight tags can be sorted by the date of the corresponding commit using (based on this answer)

git tag --sort=authordate

Annotated tags can be sorted by the date of the corresponding commit using (based on this answer)

git tag --sort=*authordate

It is possible to specify several sort fields:

git tag --sort=authordate --sort=*authordate --format='[%(*authordate:iso)][%(authordate:iso)] %(refname:short)'

but that groups all lightweight tags together and all annotated tags together because *authordate is empty for lightweight tags and authordate is empty for annotated tags. So I guess I would need the possibility to specify a fallback field which is used instead of another field if the other field is empty. Does git have a feature like that? (I haven't found it in git tag --help.)

How do I sort all tags (a mix of annotated tags and lightweight tags) by the authordate of the corresponding commit?

CodePudding user response：

Quickest way to get this done cleanly is probably

git tag --format='%(objectname)^{}' \
| git cat-file --batch-check \
| awk '$2=="commit" { print $1 }' \
| git log --stdin --author-date-order --no-walk --decorate --oneline

because tags don't have to point at commits, you can tag anything. *authordate of a tag pointing to a tag will also be blank despite it (usually) eventually resolving to a commit.