Re: pandoc/citeproc issues: multiple bibliographies, nocite, citeonly

[Nathan Gass <xabbu-8UOIJiGH10pyDzI6CaY1VQ@public.gmane.org>]

On 24.11.10 06:06, John MacFarlane wrote:
> +++ John MacFarlane [Nov 23 10 19:33 ]:
>> +++ Nathan Gass [Nov 24 10 02:29 ]:
>>>
>>> Other possibilities would be to add some label syntax, similar to
>>> the \label{} of latex, to just recognize most or even all possible
>>> headers for such a section, or use a special code block, which is at
>>> least clearly markdown syntax. Actually, when I think about it, the
>>> last one strikes me as a very good alternative. So instead of
>>>
>>>      <reference>
>>>      some config
>>>      </reference>
>>>
>>> we simply use
>>>
>>>     ~~~~~~~~~~ {.reference}
>>>     some config
>>>     ~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>
>> I'm open to suggestions other than the HTMLish syntax.  But I don't
>> think this is obviously better.  For one thing, it looks like a code
>> block.  And we'd have to implement some mini-language inside the
>> block to specify the includes, excludes, source, etc.  If we use
>> XML, we're using something that's already familiar.

I see the possibilities of markdown quite a bit broader than XML. I will 
want to show my markdown documents to people and encourage them to use 
it themself, who will not know XML at all and not be very comfortable 
editing it. Most of them will only need one Bibliography with all cited 
works and so not use any special syntax for the more complex use-cases.

For me code blocks are a very specialized feature, which is absolutely 
useless in many usages of markdown and pandoc. I therefore tend to steal 
this syntax for arbitrary plugins. That is why I considered this a good 
idea. But I like your idea below better anyway.

>>
>> One possibility would be a special attribute on a header:
>>
>> # Works cited {.bibliography src="mybib.json"}
>>
>> # References {.bibliography src="foo.bib" include="item2,item3"
>>                 omit="item4" if-year="1999" only-if-type="primary"}

I like this, especially as this syntax would allow the addition of other 
features without adding new syntax later on.

>
> PS.  I'm sorely tempted to put off implementing these complexities
> til later, and release a simple version of pandoc/citeproc that just
> constructs a bibliography of works cited in the document and puts
> them at the end, more or less the way it does now.

+1 one to that

The only problem I see with that plan is the following:
The sensible default now would be to always add a bibliography. On the 
other hand, if we have a syntax to  include the bibliography where ever 
we want, the better default would be to not include any bibliography per 
default.

But I think an appropriate warning for future incompatible changes would 
be enough in this case, as the documents will be easy enough to convert.

Nathan