CSL test suite — citation item's position

CSL Development
1

Hi!

Some tests that use CITATION-ITEM specify position field for each item.

For example: position_IfIbidWithLocatorIsTrueThenIbidIsTrue.txt

>>===== CITATION-ITEMS =====>>
[
    [
        {
            "id": "ITEM-1",
            "position": 0
        }
    ],
    [
        {
            "id": "ITEM-1",
            "label": "page",
            "locator": "23",
            "position": 3
        }
    ]
]
<<===== CITATION-ITEMS =====<<

Should the “ibid state” be calculated from locator (the same bibliography entry and locator → ibid; the same entry & different locator → ibid-with-locator; etc.) or from position (where to find appropriate mapping?). And if locator is used to calculate “ibid state”, what is the meaning of position?

2

Should the “ibid state” be calculated from locator (the same bibliography entry and locator → ibid; the same entry & different locator → ibid-with-locator; etc.) or from position (where to find appropriate mapping?).

The position of each item is determined in a non-trivial way and you can find the details in the descriptions of position condition in the CSL spec. The related code covers a large part of the processCitationCluster() function of citeproc-js (and this function is very long).

And if locator is used to calculate “ibid state”, what is the meaning of position ?

The position field is an internal parameter calculated in the processCitationCluster() process. I guess It appears in the test-suite for easy testing. The meaning of its value is defined in src/load.js#L592-L596.

    POSITION_FIRST: 0,
    POSITION_SUBSEQUENT: 1,
    POSITION_IBID: 2,
    POSITION_IBID_WITH_LOCATOR: 3,
    POSITION_CONTAINER_SUBSEQUENT: 4,