Re: [O] Citation syntax: a revised proposal

[Richard Lawrence]

Hi Nicolas,

Nicolas Goaziou <address@hidden> writes:

> Richard Lawrence <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Agreed.  I'd like to see an implementation of a parser for the
>> [cite:...] part of the syntax as a first step.  If we can get that far,
>> I'd guess that extending the parser to include either a subtype label or
>> {:key val ...} syntax will not be too difficult to do.
>
> I'll do it by the end of the week.

That would be wonderful!  Will you publish a patch or, better, a branch
somewhere, even if it's not ready for master?
 
I don't know if this is helpful, but I'm posting an updated grammar
below for the [cite: ...] part of the syntax that uses parentheses
around `cite' to indicate the distinction between in-text and
parenthetical citations.  It doesn't include any clauses for a subtype
label or for extra key-value pairs.

Best,
Richard

We need a category of /citation/ objects, which require the following
properties (the names here are not important and could be changed):
  - is-parenthetical (boolean; nil means is in-text)
  - common-prefix (text)
  - common-suffix (text)
  - references (list)

Each reference in the list of references should be a plist with the
following properties:
  - prefix (text)
  - suffix (text)
  - key (string)
  - suppress-author (boolean; t means author name should not be output)
  - is-full (boolean; t means a full bibliography entry should be
    output in-place) 

The category of citations has the following grammar:
  - A CITATION is a PARENTHETICAL-CITATION or an IN-TEXT citation.
  - A PARENTHETICAL-CITATION is either a SIMPLE-PARENTHETICAL or a
    CITATION-LIST whose TAG is a PARENTHESIZED-TAG.
  - An IN-TEXT-CITATION is either a SIMPLE-IN-TEXT, or a
    CITATION-LIST whose TAG is a BARE-TAG.
  - A SIMPLE-PARENTHETICAL is a KEY immediately surrounded by square
    brackets.
  - A SIMPLE-IN-TEXT is a BARE-KEY.
  - A CITATION-LIST has the format
       [TAG: PREFIX; INDIVIDUAL-REFERENCE; ... INDIVIDUAL-REFERENCE; SUFFIX]
    where the initial PREFIX and final SUFFIX are optional.  At least
    one INDIVIDUAL-REFERENCE must be present.  The colon and
    semicolons here are literal and indicate the end of the TAG and
    the end of a PREFIX or INDIVIDUAL-REFERENCE respectively. 
  - A TAG is either a PARENTHESIZED-TAG or a BARE-TAG.
  - A PARENTHESIZED-TAG is a BARE-TAG, immediately surrounded by parentheses.
  - A BARE-TAG is: `cite'.
  - An INDIVIDUAL-REFERENCE has the format: 
       PREFIX KEY SUFFIX
    The KEY is obligatory, and the prefix and suffix are optional.
  - A BARE-KEY is a KEY with immediately-preceding whitespace
  - A KEY optionally begins with `-', and obligatorily contains `@' or
    `&' followed by a string of characters which begins with a letter
    or `_', and may contain alphanumeric characters and the following
    internal punctuation characters:
       :.#$%&-+?<>~/
  - A PREFIX or SUFFIX is arbitrary text (except `;', `]', and KEYs)
    which may contain only the following Org objects:
    - bold
    - code
    - entity
    - italic
    - latex-fragment
    - line-break
    - strike-through
    - subscript
    - superscript
    - underline
    - superscript