# update on grouping/sorting

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [April 25, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64 "2005-04-25T01:22:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64/1 "2005-04-25T01:22:47Z")

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With help from Mike Kay on the xsl list, I managed to fix the grouping  
and sorting problems with the author/year class. I now need to go back  
and tackle the configurability issue.

There are two schools of thought here:

1. layout of bibliographies and sorting are so closely related that we  
can assume configuring one also means configuring the other

2. that 1 is not as flexible as decoupling them

In terms of practical design issues, I lean towards 1 because it  
suggests an easier interface both in xml editors, and in GUIs. I’m  
thus thinking of this:

 ...

There’s actually a variety of options, including:

1. coding the alternate key on the child:

 ...
1. explicitly declaring the main sortkey and conditioning validation  
on that:

…

1. using an element based approach:

 creator container-title ...

… or even:

 creator container-title ...

Going this approach would mean moving almost all layout details out of  
the XSLT and into CSL. So if you were using the citekey style, you’d  
have, assuming the element-based approach:

 citekey ...

… with numeric:

 number ...

… and so forth.

Of course, given there’s no need for alternative keys on the above two  
classes, this seems overkill from that perspective. In author-year the  
story is different, and the sorting stuff gets complicated sometimes.

I’ve never really gotten any clear feedback on this, but anyone have  
any perspectives?

Also, I’d like to reiterate my call for help testing out CSL on some  
real-world styles.

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 11:26am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64/2 "2005-04-26T11:26:49Z")

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Thanks Taco. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m cc-ing my reply to the  
list. Taco wrote and maintains the ConTeXt bib module, so have no  
doubt a lot of first hand experience with sorting and grouping issues.

> Bruce D’Arcus wrote:
> 
> > Taco – do you have any thoughts on this issue? The concrete issue  
> > I’m trying work out here is how to configure the logic that says  
> > “sort on creator name; if not present, then if article, use  
> > periodical title, if book use “Anonymous”, etc.”
> 
> What I’d really like is a way to change the global sort order without  
> having to edit lots of places in the style

Yes, I’d like to keep the CSL as simple as it can be.

> , but besides that, I’m  
> not quite sure what the best solution would be.
> 
> It would be weird to sort ‘article’ fundamentally different from  
> say ‘manual’, so I believe it makes sense to define an abstract  
> sort specification like

The thing is, there are some reference types that do sort differently.  
For example, a legal case uses the case title as the sortkey. This is  
the example that threw me (I have a few legal documents in the book I’m  
working on), and made me reconsider the whole damned thing!

> somewhere on top-level. Then (if needed) use an extra block in the  
> reftype to map element names to abstraction layer:
> 
> Anonymous. ..
> 
> But , there will be ‘defaulting’ problems with this approach as  
> well, I’m afraid.

Let me tell what I started to think last night, and see if this makes  
sense:

All along I’ve tried to keep CSL fairly simple. Where I can, this  
means I either make implicit assumptions, or have a parameter that  
makes it explicit.

So, the most important parameter is the citation style class. The  
citation class that I’m working on here is author-year. Other classes  
are number, citekey, and note-nobib and note-bib (both footnote/endnote  
styles).

I assume most of the sorting logic based on the citation style class.  
So, the citekey class will sort on the citekey (with an option for  
author-year sorting), the number class on the number, etc.

Now, the tricky part is that you often have stuff like this in  
author-year, if there is no “author”:

```
if a periodical article, then substitute the periodical title
if a monograph, substitute "Anonymous"

```

Now, what dawned on me yesterday is that this complicated substitution  
only needs to be configured in the author-year class, and it only needs  
to apply to cs:creator. If I define something like:

 ...

Then that title will be there (it has to be). I don’t need to allow  
users infinite configurability here, and indeed it will make their  
lives (and mine!) easier.

So now I’m just thinking that I model that in CSL (I’m using RELAX NG,  
so I can do this):

BibliographyLayout-author-year = element bibliography { ( Creator |  
Title ), OtherFormatting }  
Creator = element creator { attribute alternate-sortkey {  
“container-title”, “anonymous”, “title” }

… and then have the formatting of “anonymous” defined somewhere else.

How’s that?

How does tend to work in m-bib?

Bruce

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 11:36am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64/3 "2005-04-26T11:36:58Z")

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I should also add that the system has a robust fallback system where  
records get categorized into one of three classes, which map to the  
article, book, and chapter fallbacks. I was just working on a function  
last night that represents this logic:

\<xsl:function name=“mods:use\_csl-reftype” as=“xs:string”\>  
\<xsl:param name=“bibref” as=“element(mods:mods)”/\>  
\<xsl:sequence select=“if (mods:csl-reftype($bibref)) then  
(mods:csl-reftype($bibref))  
else (mods:csl-fallback($bibref))”/\>  
\</xsl:function\>

So the fallback definitions are required, and one only adds new ones if  
they don’t work right. A report, for example, would typically not need  
a new definition.

Bruce

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/update-on-grouping-sorting/64/4 "2005-04-26T14:46:01Z")

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Taco’s reply:\> Right. Sounds good. The m-bib’s bst files do sorting as follows: