Article number

[au76666]

I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers
instead of page numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made
do with note = {Article number 113097} and this sort of works
but an actual item meant for this would probably work better.
I suppose the style file would have to also "know" about this.

I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to
find that, but they simply use pages = ...

Dieter

[Peter Flynn]

Post by au76666
I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers

Article numbers? In what sense? Like a journal with 30 articles
numbering them 1–30? Or some other numbering scheme?

Post by au76666
instead of page numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made
do with note = {Article number 113097} and this sort of works
but an actual item meant for this would probably work better.
I suppose the style file would have to also "know" about this.

biblatex has an 'eid' field for "The electronic identifier of an @article".

Maybe this is time to switch to using biblatex.
BiBTeX will probably not be updated.

Post by au76666
I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to
find that, but they simply use pages = ...

Try biblatex, I guess.

P

[Axel Berger]

Post by Peter Flynn
Article numbers? In what sense? Like a journal with 30 articles
numbering them 1–30? Or some other numbering scheme?

It's quite common for journals without a printed edition. For an example
take a look at any article in PLoS One.
Not the same. That's the DOI.

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by Axel Berger

Post by Peter Flynn
Article numbers? In what sense? Like a journal with 30 articles
numbering them 1-30? Or some other numbering scheme?

It's quite common for journals without a printed edition. For an example
take a look at any article in PLoS One.
Not the same. That's the DOI.

Then it should be called DOI. :-|

[Axel Berger]

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)

Post by Axel Berger
Not the same. That's the DOI.

Then it should be called DOI. :-|

No. The DOI is just one kind of an identifier, the ISBN would be
another. There are dozens of them it would be silly for the bib format
to offer separate fields for al of them when only one can apply to a
given document. "DOI:", "ISBN:" or whatever is part of the identifier
used so there's no ambiguity.

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by Peter Flynn
rticle".

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)

Post by Axel Berger
Not the same. That's the DOI.

Then it should be called DOI. :-|

No. The DOI is just one kind of an identifier, the ISBN would be
another. There are dozens of them it would be silly for the bib format
to offer separate fields for al of them when only one can apply to a
given document.

It is certainly possible to have both an ISBN and a DOI.

[Moewe]

Post by Axel Berger
Not the same. That's the DOI.

Mhh ... 'electronic identifier' is a bit vague, but I'm pretty sure that
the 'eid' field *is* supposed to be used for this kind of article
numbers and not for DOIs. biblatex has a dedicated field (naturally
called 'doi') for DOIs and the generic 'eprint' for other eprint
identifiers. Compare also the only entry with an 'eid' in
biblatex-examples.bib, kastenholz, which has 'eid = 124106,' and 'doi =
{10.1063/1.2172593},'.

Note that in version 3.13 of biblatex the documentation of the 'eid'
field adds

Post by Axel Berger
This field may replace the pages field for journals
deviating from the classic pagination scheme of printed journals
by only enumerating articles or papers and not pages.

In case you are using biblatex, 'eid' seems like the best (most natural)
choice, but I'm not sure if all contributed styles support it. With
BibTeX 'note' is the obvious alternative, since most (all?) styles won't
know about an equivalent field to biblatex's eid, but in some styles
(ab)using the 'pages' field may still give good results. Of course you
could edit your favourite .bst styles to support 'eid' or a similar
field, but I'm not sure if that is worth the work and it certainly
doesn't make your document more portable...

[Axel Berger]

Post by Moewe
Mhh ... 'electronic identifier' is a bit vague, but I'm pretty sure that
the 'eid' field *is* supposed to be used for this kind of article
numbers and not for DOIs. biblatex has a dedicated field (naturally
called 'doi') for DOIs and the generic 'eprint' for other eprint
identifiers.

Alright, in that case I was wrong.

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Axel Berger

Post by Peter Flynn
Article numbers? In what sense? Like a journal with 30 articles
numbering them 1–30? Or some other numbering scheme?

It's quite common for journals without a printed edition. For an example
take a look at any article in PLoS One.
Not the same. That's the DOI.

I don't think so — there's a field called 'doi' for that.

P

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by Peter Flynn

Post by au76666
I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers

Article numbers? In what sense? Like a journal with 30 articles
numbering them 1---30? Or some other numbering scheme?

Right. This is common with online journals, especially those which
offer only HTML and not PDF. Even with PDF, this allows author-prepared
manuscripts to be used as is, and not reprocessed to get consecutive
page numbers.
That is probably what is needed.

Post by Peter Flynn
Maybe this is time to switch to using biblatex.
BiBTeX will probably not be updated.

BiBTeX does most things most people need, is stable, works, and is
supported by many journals. How much of that is true of biblatex?

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by au76666
I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers
instead of page numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made
do with note = {Article number 113097} and this sort of works
but an actual item meant for this would probably work better.
I suppose the style file would have to also "know" about this.
I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to
find that, but they simply use pages = ...

With pages, I always write the page range (e.g. 235--298). For article
numbers, I just write the article number in the PAGE field. Very few
bibliography styles actually print "page" or "p." or whatever. If the
journal uses article numbers, then they should make sure that their
bibliography style produces correct results if one puts the number in
the page field, or make sure that their class file does the right thing.

I am a happy user of BibTeX, but don't know much about the internals. I
don't know how easy it is to add additional fields to traditional
<whatever the collective noun is> like article, book, and so on.

[Peter Flynn]

On 03/09/2019 20:49, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
[...]

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
I am a happy user of BibTeX, but don't know much about the internals.
I don't know how easy it is to add additional fields to traditional
<whatever the collective noun is> like article, book, and so on.

"Fieldsets", I think.

Very hard IMNSHO :-) which is why I switched to biblatex. The BiBTeX
language (used in .bst files by the bibtex program) is amazingly fast
and highly specific, and a tribute to the ingenuity and skill of Oren
Patashnik, but AFAIK it is used nowhere else on the planet, and is not
very easy to get to grips with for the non-computer scientist.

P

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Peter Flynn
[...]

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
I am a happy user of BibTeX, but don't know much about the internals.
I don't know how easy it is to add additional fields to traditional
<whatever the collective noun is> like article, book, and so on.

"Fieldsets", I think.
Very hard IMNSHO :-) which is why I switched to biblatex. The BiBTeX
language (used in .bst files by the bibtex program) is amazingly fast
and highly specific, and a tribute to the ingenuity and skill of Oren
Patashnik, but AFAIK it is used nowhere else on the planet,

Doesn't that also describe biblatex? Do people write programs in biblatex?

Post by Peter Flynn
and is not
very easy to get to grips with for the non-computer scientist.
P

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Peter Flynn
[...]

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
I am a happy user of BibTeX, but don't know much about the internals.
I don't know how easy it is to add additional fields to traditional
<whatever the collective noun is> like article, book, and so on.

"Fieldsets", I think.
Very hard IMNSHO :-) which is why I switched to biblatex. The BiBTeX
language (used in .bst files by the bibtex program) is amazingly fast
and highly specific, and a tribute to the ingenuity and skill of Oren
Patashnik, but AFAIK it is used nowhere else on the planet,

Doesn't that also describe biblatex? Do people write programs in biblatex?

biblatex is written in ordinary LaTeX, so yes, lots of people write
bibliographic formatters for all the various styles.

Peter

[Scott Pakin]

Post by au76666
I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers
instead of page numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made
do with note = {Article number 113097} and this sort of works
but an actual item meant for this would probably work better.
I suppose the style file would have to also "know" about this.
I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to
find that, but they simply use pages = ...

I typically force-fit the article number into the pages field:

pages = {012322:1--10},

-- Scott

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Scott Pakin

Post by au76666
I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the
major journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers
instead of page numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made
do with note = {Article number 113097} and this sort of works
but an actual item meant for this would probably work better.
I suppose the style file would have to also "know" about this.
I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to
find that, but they simply use pages = ...

pages = {012322:1--10},

That's what I do. It doesn't seem to create any problems.

[Dieter Britz]

Post by Scott Pakin

I use LaTeX with BibTeX. I just found out that one of the major
journals I look at regularly now uses article numbers instead of page
numbers. Is there a Bib item for this? I made do with note = {Article
number 113097} and this sort of works but an actual item meant for this
would probably work better. I suppose the style file would have to also
"know" about this.
I did download the BibTeX file for the article, hoping to find that,
but they simply use pages = ...

pages = {012322:1--10},
-- Scott

Great, I'll try that, it also gives an idea of how long the paper is.
But I will also beef up on biblatex, looks like I should.

Thank you all for the many answers.