Re: [PATCH] BibTeX-mode: add eprint field as potential source for entry's URL

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Roland Winkler <winkler@gnu.org>
> Cc: Leo Stein <leo.stein@gmail.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2024 07:08:20 -0600
> 
> On Sun, Dec 01 2024, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> diff --git a/lisp/textmodes/bibtex.el b/lisp/textmodes/bibtex.el
> >> index 99a97c9bb8d..c77953489a7 100644
> >> --- a/lisp/textmodes/bibtex.el
> >> +++ b/lisp/textmodes/bibtex.el
> >> @@ -1443,6 +1443,9 @@ Used by `bibtex-complete-crossref-cleanup' and `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill'."
> >>  
> >>  (defcustom bibtex-generate-url-list
> >>    '((("url" . ".*:.*"))
> >> +    (("eprint" . ".*")
> >> +     "https://arxiv.org/abs/%s"
> >> +     ("eprint" ".*" 0))
> >>      (("doi" . "10\\.[0-9]+/.+")
> >>       "https://doi.org/%s"
> >>       ("doi" ".*" 0)))
> >
> > Roland, any comments?
> 
> The above patch is very arXiv-specific.  All this goes beyond
> old-fashioned BibTeX.  But the documentation for biblatex (current:
> version 3.20 from CTAN) says in Sec. 3.14.7 "Electronic Publishing
> Information" how the field "eprint" should be used in combination with a
> field "eprinttype" to identify an electronically published document.
> Arxiv's usage is not compatible with this.  Instead of "eprinttype"
> arXiv uses a field "archivePrefix", and the field "primaryClass" used by
> arXiv should probably be replaced by the optional field "eprintclass"
> mentioned in the biblatex documentation.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, neither the arXiv approach nor the different
> approach suggested by the biblatex documentation have found a widespread
> use in real life.
> 
> The user variable bibtex-generate-url-list can be configured to work
> either way, as suggested by the OP or as suggested by the biblatex
> documentation.  Here it seems to me the best solution is to keep the
> default of bibtex-generate-url-list as it is now and let users configure
> this variable as desired / needed.

I agree.  Since this is a user option, too-specific changes in it
should be the matter of the user, not of changing the default.