# Maximum of 50 authors?

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [February 13, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249 "2015-02-13T21:35:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Maloney\_Christopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/54ee81/32.png) [@Maloney\_Christopher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Maloney_Christopher)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/1 "2015-02-13T21:35:55Z")

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Hi,

We’re having a problem that manifests in the APA style. Attached is the JSON that has 51 authors. The output we’re getting is:

A00, A., A01, B., A02, C., A03, D., A04, E., A05, F., … A09, J. (2010). Modelling the Species Distribution of Flat-Headed Cats (Prionailurus planiceps), an Endangered South-East Asian Small Felid. PLoS ONE, 5(3), e9612. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009612

You can see that the last author is listed as “A09”, which is really the tenth author in the list.

If I reduce the number of authors by one, then it works correctly.

Is this a known bug?

Thanks,–  
Chris Maloney  
NIH/NLM/NCBI (Contractor)  
Building 45, 4AN36D-12  
301-594-2842

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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:** [February 14, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/2 "2015-02-14T02:14:52Z")

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The processor chops author lists to the maximum of all et-al-min  
values plus two, as a protection against massive author lists. It’s  
currently a straight chop of the list, and that should trigger this  
bug.

Oddly, though, I couldn’t get the bug to manifest in the citeproc-js  
test framework, when rendering a bibliography with this input data and  
the APA style. The cause of the failure (to fail) turned out to be a  
separate bug, introduced at processor tag 1.0.506, that caused author  
truncation to be completely bypassed in bibliography rendering.

I’ve pinned down the bug, and it will be fixed shortly, but I’m  
puzzled as to why we’ve gotten different results in the initial  
testing. Was this triggered with the latest processor version?

Frank

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**Author:** ![Maloney\_Christopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/54ee81/32.png) [@Maloney\_Christopher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Maloney_Christopher)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/3 "2015-02-17T22:08:44Z")

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Frank wrote:

> Was this triggered with the latest processor version?

Probably not. I’m using citeproc-java 0.6, which includes a distribution  
of citeproc-js. I’m not sure which — I checked the source citeproc.js  
file, but didn’t see a version number inside it.–  
Chris Maloney

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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:** [February 17, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/4 "2015-02-17T22:45:10Z")

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It looks like citeproc-java was last updated seven months ago. You  
should be able to drop in a recent version, together with the XML  
parser (xmldom.js etc) if it’s used by citeproc-java.

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**Author:** ![michelkraemer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/michelkraemer/32/226_2.png) [@michelkraemer](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/michelkraemer)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 7:16am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/5 "2015-02-18T07:16:16Z")

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Hi!

If you want to drop in a new citeproc-js version you need to rebuild  
citeproc-java from source. However, this should be fairly easy. Just  
follow the instructions in the README. Let me know if you need assistance.

Cheers,  
Michel

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Maloney\_Christopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/54ee81/32.png) [@Maloney\_Christopher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Maloney_Christopher)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/6 "2015-02-18T20:23:58Z")

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Thanks, gentleman. Building with a later version of citeproc-js seems to  
have fixed this. When I built citeproc-java, it grabbed citeproc-js  
1.0.521.–  
Chris Maloney  
NIH/NLM/NCBI (Contractor)  
Building 45, 4AN36D-12  
301-594-2842

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**Author:** ![michelkraemer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/michelkraemer/32/226_2.png) [@michelkraemer](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/michelkraemer)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 6:47am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/7 "2015-02-19T06:47:25Z")

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Thanks for the feedback. I’ll try to release a new version of  
citeproc-java as soon as possible.

Michel

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<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:** [February 21, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/maximum-of-50-authors/1249/8 "2015-02-21T03:51:04Z")

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The latest tag is 1.0.559, which incorporates some important changes  
to names handling discussed in another thread:

```
http://xbiblio-devel.2463403.n2.nabble.com/Institutional-names-td7579244.html

```

Frank