The problem I have with this is that it's quite messy, and the only purpose is to have a different version string from the one we have right now. Also, this would be the only tool with this version string, which is strange.

Which version of git do you have? That behaviour is weird.

I'd imagine that if this PR were merged then the other tools should also be updated accordingly, since like you say, it would be inconsistent otherwise.

As for git...

$ git --version
git version 2.46.1

I think it may be caused by git not storing dates for lightweight tags; from man git-tag:

Tag objects (created with -a, -s, or -u) are called "annotated" tags; they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a tagging
       message, and an optional GnuPG signature. Whereas a "lightweight" tag is simply a name for an object (usually a commit object).

Rename the commit to say build: Replace PACKAGE_VERSION & __DATE__ with git tag

Updated.

Hmmm this doesn't seem to be working fine for me:

Nintendo DS rom tool (commit v2.2.0-40-g0c67281)

What do you get? That tag is really old, there are a bunch of tags after that one. However, according to SemVer, they are "older" versions, so that may be the reason.

Hmmm this doesn't seem to be working fine for me:

Nintendo DS rom tool (commit v2.2.0-40-g0c67281)

What do you get? That tag is really old, there are a bunch of tags after that one. However, according to SemVer, they are "older" versions, so that may be the reason.

This is what I get:

Nintendo DS rom tool (commit 0c67281)

The syntax v2.2.0-40-g0c67281 means the v2.2.0 tag is 40 commits prior to 0c67281. I managed to reproduce your results by making an annotated commit on a0ae6b5, the devkitpro v2.2.0 release. Looks like your local git repository has annotated tags from the original ndstool that this github repository does not have (all of the tags here are lightweight, which act differently), but either way it should work the same way as my machine.

I just pushed a commit that should fix this.

Ok, I see. Thanks for the investigation!