On Mon, Aug 02, 2021, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote: > > > > Why does refer(1) have no database field for "edition"? > > > The lacuna isn't in refer(1), but in the macro packages using it. > > Any %c, where c is an alphabetic character, can be used to create > > a field refer(1) understands. It is up to macro writers to work > > out the the formatting and placement within a refer(1) citation or > > bibliography entry. > > Certainly it can be extended, but it would be useful if > there were some general agreement on which character to use > (preferably something mnemonic; "E" is already taken by > "editor"), unless you are satisfied with a solution that > works only with one macro package (if competing approaches > are taken by the writers of different macro packages).
Mom uses %e for edition. It's the best candidate since it has a twenty year history of being used in mom documents. No other package I know of claims it, meaning, in real terms, that its use is established (sort of). > Sticking it onto the end of the title field is ugly, because > one might like the title to be printed in italics, whereas the > edition is "meta information" and should therefore perhaps be > in the regular font. There are no should therefores or guesswork when it comes to formatting bibliographies. Where edition goes and how it's formatted is fixed by the style: *Chicago puts it after the title, preceded by a comma, in roman, followed by the publication data in parentheses. *APA places it in parentheses after the title, in roman, with a period after the right parens. *MLA puts it after the title, preceded by a period, in roman, followed by a comma, followed by the publication data. Those are the only ones I know, but you catch my drift. -- Peter Schaffter https://www.schaffter.ca
