# include-period vs. strip-periods/strip-characters

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [July 13, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689 "2009-07-13T16:30:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Simon\_Kornblith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Simon\_Kornblith](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Simon_Kornblith)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/1 "2009-07-13T16:30:09Z")

</div>

Apologies for my somewhat sparse presence on this list as of late, but  
I wanted to make sure we at least investigate this issue before  
releasing 1.0. Currently, we have an include-period attribute, which  
determines whether a period is added to locale terms. We’ve discussed  
this several times before, but we’ve never committed to anything:

[https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg\_id=188351850903220251k17336a2q82a2974204d9364f%40mail.gmail.com](https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=188351850903220251k17336a2q82a2974204d9364f%40mail.gmail.com)  
[https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg\_id=9A5E1819-A25A-4760-9D76-1726BCF5BB5E%40caltech.edu](https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=9A5E1819-A25A-4760-9D76-1726BCF5BB5E%40caltech.edu)  
[https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg\_id=0BB1DD0A-287B-483C-958D-0131B8FDFCEC%40simonster.com](https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=0BB1DD0A-287B-483C-958D-0131B8FDFCEC%40simonster.com)

Since it seems that 1.0 will not be backwards-compatible with 0.8,  
perhaps we can add an option to strip periods before it goes live? The  
first use case for this is locale abbreviations, e.g.

Apr. -\> Apr

We currently do the reverse, adding periods to locale terms based on  
form, but stripping the periods seems more logical and there is less  
apparent black magic involved. This would require some changes to the  
locales. The second use case is journal abbreviations, e.g.

Nat. Cell Biol. -\> Nat Cell Biol

This can only be accomplished by stripping the periods, since we have  
no way of knowing which words are abbreviations and which are not.  
Thus, include-period is not really sufficient for this purpose.

We have two possible ways of implementing this feature. The first,  
suggested by Rintze, is

and the second, which i suggested a while back, is

I have no real preference here. Both of these should be comparably  
simple in implementation. The former seems more extensible, but I’m  
not sure it would ever get used for anything besides periods, in which  
case the extensibility would be for naught. If anyone has a preference  
or issue with this change, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll commit  
this tomorrow.

Thanks,  
Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/2 "2009-07-13T17:02:53Z")

</div>

Question: would this only apply to the “short” form?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon\_Kornblith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Simon\_Kornblith](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Simon_Kornblith)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/3 "2009-07-13T17:16:07Z")

</div>

> Question: would this only apply to the “short” form?

It doesn’t seem like this stipulation would be necessary. include-  
period as it is currently implemented applies only to the sort form  
because periods shouldn’t be added to the symbol or long forms, but if  
the short forms simply included periods in locales.xml and the other  
forms did not, then we wouldn’t need this kind of magic. I can’t think  
of any cases off the top of my head where periods would be desirable  
in symbol or long forms but not in short forms.

Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/4 "2009-07-13T17:28:03Z")

</div>

> The  
> first use case for this is locale abbreviations, e.g.
> 
> Apr. → Apr
> 
> We currently do the reverse, adding periods to locale terms based on  
> form, but stripping the periods seems more logical and there is less  
> apparent black magic involved. This would require some changes to the  
> locales.

Plus I guess that the current setup (which depends on include-period)  
wrongly attaches a period on months that aren’t abbreviated, like  
“May” (although you can of course work around that by checking whether  
the short and long forms are the same, and skip the period if they  
are).

The second use case is journal abbreviations, e.g.

> Nat. Cell Biol. → Nat Cell Biol
> 
> This can only be accomplished by stripping the periods, since we have  
> no way of knowing which words are abbreviations and which are not.  
> Thus, include-period is not really sufficient for this purpose.
> 
> We have two possible ways of implementing this feature. The first,  
> suggested by Rintze, is
> 
> and the second, which i suggested a while back, is
> 
> I have no real preference here. Both of these should be comparably  
> simple in implementation. The former seems more extensible, but I’m  
> not sure it would ever get used for anything besides periods, in which  
> case the extensibility would be for naught. If anyone has a preference  
> or issue with this change, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll commit  
> this tomorrow.

The only other related case I can think of right now are patent  
numbers. Some styles use “U.S. patent 3,002,329” while others use  
“U.S. patent 3002329”, e.g.:

> **[How to Write a Bibliography for a Research Paper ✍ MLA Format Examples](https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-bibliography-research-paper.html)**
>
> A comprehensive guide on how to write a bibliography for a research paper ☑️ MLA citing examples to use in your bibliography

[http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How\_do\_I/pdf/apa\_style.pdf](http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How_do_I/pdf/apa_style.pdf)  
So there you’d like to strip the commas (assuming you store the patent  
numbers in your database with commas). Or you’d need a way to parse  
the patent number and choose to apply a thousands separator or not  
(which are locale-specific, but I digress).

Rintze

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/5 "2009-07-13T17:43:17Z")

</div>

> > Question: would this only apply to the “short” form?
> 
> It doesn’t seem like this stipulation would be necessary. include-  
> period as it is currently implemented applies only to the sort form  
> because periods shouldn’t be added to the symbol or long forms, but if  
> the short forms simply included periods in locales.xml and the other  
> forms did not, then we wouldn’t need this kind of magic. I can’t think  
> of any cases off the top of my head where periods would be desirable  
> in symbol or long forms but not in short forms.

I just need to figure out how to specify it. My impulse is to limit to  
short forms for clarity.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon\_Kornblith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Simon\_Kornblith](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Simon_Kornblith)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/6 "2009-07-13T17:47:33Z")

</div>

If it can apply to any form, we can specify it as a formatting  
attribute, which seems simpler to me, but I have no strong opinion.

Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon\_Kornblith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Simon\_Kornblith](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Simon_Kornblith)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/7 "2009-07-13T17:51:22Z")

</div>

So then a generalized strip-characters attribute would support this  
case. But, if we wanted to take the localized approach, we might be  
better off extending the element?

Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/8 "2009-07-14T18:47:04Z")

</div>

> The only other related case I can think of right now are patent  
> numbers. Some styles use “U.S. patent 3,002,329” while others use  
> “U.S. patent 3002329”, e.g.:  
> [How to Write a Bibliography for a Research Paper ✍ MLA Format Examples](http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html#30)  
> [http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How\_do\_I/pdf/apa\_style.pdf](http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How_do_I/pdf/apa_style.pdf)  
> So there you’d like to strip the commas (assuming you store the patent  
> numbers in your database with commas). Or you’d need a way to parse  
> the patent number and choose to apply a thousands separator or not  
> (which are locale-specific, but I digress).
> 
> So then a generalized strip-characters attribute would support this case.  
> But, if we wanted to take the localized approach, we might be better off  
> extending the element?

The use of strip-characters would be limited in this case (it would be  
a one-way street, so it wouldn’t help with styles that specify the use  
of a thousands delimiter unless you’ve carefully curated your  
database). The latter option would be preferable, but hasn’t nearly  
the priority of strip-periods. Newly issued patent numbers don’t sport  
these thousands separators anymore anyway (e.g.  
[http://ep.espacenet.com/help?locale=en\_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=publicationnumber](http://ep.espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=publicationnumber)).  
So to keep things simple I advocate strip-periods for CSL 1.0.On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Simon Kornblith\<@Simon\_Kornblith\> wrote:

> On Jul 13, 2009, at 10:28 AM, Rintze Zelle wrote:

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Bruce D’Arcus\<@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1\> wrote:

> I just need to figure out how to specify it. My impulse is to limit to  
> short forms for clarity.

IMHO the specification should afford sufficient clarity. I don’t see  
the need to complicate the schema just to limit strip-periods to  
short-form variables in cs:text (restricting it to variables in  
cs:text should do just fine).

Rintze

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [July 14, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/9 "2009-07-14T20:13:03Z")

</div>

> > The only other related case I can think of right now are patent  
> > numbers. Some styles use “U.S. patent 3,002,329” while others use  
> > “U.S. patent 3002329”, e.g.:  
> > [How to Write a Bibliography for a Research Paper ✍ MLA Format Examples](http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html#30)  
> > [http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How\_do\_I/pdf/apa\_style.pdf](http://www.library.dal.ca/Files/How_do_I/pdf/apa_style.pdf)  
> > So there you’d like to strip the commas (assuming you store the patent  
> > numbers in your database with commas). Or you’d need a way to parse  
> > the patent number and choose to apply a thousands separator or not  
> > (which are locale-specific, but I digress).
> > 
> > So then a generalized strip-characters attribute would support this case.  
> > But, if we wanted to take the localized approach, we might be better off  
> > extending the element?
> 
> The use of strip-characters would be limited in this case (it would be  
> a one-way street, so it wouldn’t help with styles that specify the use  
> of a thousands delimiter unless you’ve carefully curated your  
> database). The latter option would be preferable, but hasn’t nearly  
> the priority of strip-periods. Newly issued patent numbers don’t sport  
> these thousands separators anymore anyway (e.g.  
> [http://ep.espacenet.com/help?locale=en\_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=publicationnumber](http://ep.espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=publicationnumber)).  
> So to keep things simple I advocate strip-periods for CSL 1.0.
> 
> > I just need to figure out how to specify it. My impulse is to limit to  
> > short forms for clarity.
> 
> IMHO the specification should afford sufficient clarity. I don’t see  
> the need to complicate the schema just to limit strip-periods to  
> short-form variables in cs:text (restricting it to variables in  
> cs:text should do just fine).

I vote for making this a formatting attribute that just strips  
trailing periods, and allowing it everywhere. Using it on a number  
would not be useful, but that’s also true of text-case (which is  
currently a formatting attribute available everywhere).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/10 "2009-07-14T20:54:57Z")

</div>

Trailing periods only doesn’t cover use cases like abbreviated journal  
titles or organizational names.

I guess I’d vote for adding “strip-periods” and for it to apply to the  
whole string; only on cs:text.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [July 14, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/11 "2009-07-14T21:17:06Z")

</div>

> > I vote for making this a formatting attribute that just strips  
> > trailing periods, and allowing it everywhere.
> 
> Trailing periods only doesn’t cover use cases like abbreviated journal  
> titles or organizational names.
> 
> I guess I’d vote for adding “strip-periods” and for it to apply to the  
> whole string; only on cs:text.

And label as well?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [July 26, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/include-period-vs-strip-periods-strip-characters/689/12 "2009-07-26T22:22:28Z")

</div>

> > > I vote for making this a formatting attribute that just strips  
> > > trailing periods, and allowing it everywhere.
> > 
> > Trailing periods only doesn’t cover use cases like abbreviated journal  
> > titles or organizational names.
> > 
> > I guess I’d vote for adding “strip-periods” and for it to apply to the  
> > whole string; only on cs:text.
> 
> And label as well?

My last two messages in this thread were out of focus, and seem to  
have stalled progress toward settling this item.

In response to Bruce’s last:

> I guess I’d vote for adding “strip-periods” and for it to  
> apply to the whole string; only on cs:text.

I should have just written:

+1

Frank