git describe relative to a given tag pattern

Hi

I'm trying to use git describe to describe the current status of my tree with respect a given tag, or more specifically the latest tag matching a specific pattern.

My repository has the following tags:

$ git tag -l lal-v* lal-v6.6.0 lal-v6.6.0rc1 lal-v6.6.0rc2 lal-v6.6.1 lal-v6.6.2 $

And I want git describe to use the latest of these tags, so looking at the git describe man page it seems that the --match option can allow me to specify a pattern. This, however, doesn't seem to work:

$ git describe --match=lal-v* HEAD fatal: No tags can describe 'cee13cbb25d0fa38f6e3bc6622bc751ebf35d2f0'. Try --always, or create some tags. $

quoting the pattern has no effect, what am I doing wrong here?

Cheers

Adam

PS: I'm using git-1.7.9

Adam Mercer <ramercer@gmail.com> writes:

Perhaps Git is correct and your HEAD is not a descendant of any tag whose name matches the pattern "lal-v*".

Here is how people can mimic the situation:

	$ git checkout v1.7.6~20
        $ git describe --match='v1.7.*' HEAD
        v1.7.6-rc0-3-g6c92972
        $ git describe --match='v1.7.[7-9]*' HEAD
        fatal: No tags can describe '6c92972d7f5ab247a8cab5e4b88cb281bf201970'.
	Try --always, or create some tags.

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 16:10, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Thanks you're right, the tags I was trying to match are on a different branch. Back to the drawing board for this script.

Cheers

Adam