org-cite, CSL styles and space before citation

[Max Nikulin]

On 01/04/2022 00:27, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 11:27 AM Max Nikulin wrote:
>
> > > > Emphasis and bold markers may appear in plain text export. Behavior of styles is
> > > > not uniform in respect to adding (unbreakable?) space before citation.
> > >
> > > Sorry; not following here again. Isn't the space before a citation
> > > determined by the user?
> >
> > I was lucky enough to pick a couple of styles having different behavior.
> > Notice additional unbreakable space before "[1]" in the second example.
> > I have checked a couple of IEEE papers and they have spaces before
> > citations, so to switch from IEEE to APS style it is necessary to remove
> > spaces before citations.
>
> The latter style includes a non-breaking space in the citation definition ...
>
> https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/21e2177295be5b98ef49b00dd4b8cc7e68d2143d/american-physics-society.csl#L96
>
> ... which strikes me as odd, though would explain what you see.

I grepped the directory with CSL styles for "prefix" and tried 
annales.csl. It removes regular spaces before citations (if they exist) 
but preserves non-breakable one.

Since the project has enormous amount of styles, it is hard to ensure 
that they have uniform quality and behavior e.g. in respect to 
responsibility for a space before citations. A test sample and result of 
rendering for it with a check list for style authors may help, but they 
will evolve in time. It is unlikely that accidental contributors of 
styles will manage to maintain compliance to current edition of tests. 
However it would be great for various tools dealing with styles.

P.S. After all, it is necessary to change style when e.g. a journal 
declined a paper. It may mean that the quality of the paper is not high 
enough. Adjusting the text for another style is a burden that makes it 
harder to just send it to another journal and thus reduces number of low 
quality papers. And such efforts are negligible in comparison with 
attempts to mane the content better. So some oddities with particular 
styles are not a serious issue.