# APL Page identifiers and page ranges

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/apl-page-identifiers-and-page-ranges/651>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [June 6, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/apl-page-identifiers-and-page-ranges/651 "2009-06-06T16:27:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Karnesky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@Richard\_Karnesky](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Richard_Karnesky)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/apl-page-identifiers-and-page-ranges/651/1 "2009-06-06T16:27:32Z")

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> [http://apl.aip.org/apl/citation\_format.jsp](http://apl.aip.org/apl/citation_format.jsp)

Perhaps it is because I’ve been using this format for the last four  
years, but I don’t know if I understand either of Frank’s two posts on  
this subject. APL’s citation identifier does not use a hyphen in  
citations (as he noted in the latter post). But it also cannot and  
does not need to be composed by “standard CSL elements.” While the  
issue number is a standard element, neither the subject area nor the  
publication order are known.

The citation ID is just treated as if it were a page number in  
reference managers & CSL can treat it the same way.

If you want to cite a particular page in an APL, locators still work.  
The only deficiency I can think of to this substitution of an ID for a  
page number is probably not a concern to CSL, but it might be to  
reference management software: there is no way to know the length of a  
paper given only the APL ID. This can be useful metadata, but is  
rarely (if ever) cited. I tend to either keep this information in an  
extra field or will subvert the page number field to store both the ID  
& a real page range using ‘023507:1-3.’ It seems like online  
databases store a wider range of variations to store this info  
(‘0235071-0235073’, ‘023507(1-3)’, etc.). While it would be nice for  
reference managers to standardize these variations on import (where  
possible), I don’t think CSL should have to worry about them.

–Rick

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**Author:** ![Frank\_Bennett](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/frank_bennett/32/198_2.png) [@Frank\_Bennett](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Frank_Bennett)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/apl-page-identifiers-and-page-ranges/651/2 "2009-06-06T21:06:28Z")

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Rick, thanks for clarifying, and sorry for the confusion.

Frank