Modify variable in rst with pandoc

Question

I'm converting a .rst document to .tex with pandoc and I would like to modify variables, such as $date in the .rst document. I'm using:

============
My doc title
============

:Date: October

My first title
==============

Lipsum…

The variable is indeed overridden, but using field lists like this generates a definition section in the resulting LaTeX document:

\title{My doc title}
\date{Octobre}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\begin{description}
\end{description}

This empty description makes LaTeX compilation fail. When I don't use field lists, it disappears.

How can I avoid this description section while using field lists in my RST document?

Answer 1

This is a bug in pandoc, which I just fixed. (The fix will be in the next release, but if you need it now, you can compile the development version: see here for instructions.)

Note also that pandoc currently only recognizes author, title, and date as metadata fields. If you're expecting other fields to set template variables, you'll be disappointed.