How can I decorate a git log with its nearest tag?

Question

git log --decorate adds information about related refs to the log output:

commit 9e895ace5d82df8929b16f58e9f515f6d54ab82d (tag: v3.10-rc7)
Author: L         


        

Answer 1

As you can see, older tag names are used as reference point rather than the point where the commit got merged.

That should be possible... soon (git 1.8.4 July 2013):

See commit e00dd1e9485c50f202cc97dfae19d510e108b565:

describe: Add --first-parent option

Only consider the first parent commit when walking the commit history.
This is useful if you only wish to match tags on your branch after a merge.

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The OP Lekensteyn comments it (--first-parent) isn't enough:

--first-parent does not show the tag where it got merged too.
I just discovered that --contains can be used for that.
See my answer for an even better solution, git name-rev.

Note: git name-rev dates back from git0.99.9 (Oct. 2005!).