Re: Citation syntax: Underscore MUST(?) be allowed in cite keys?

[Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu>]

Hi Eric and all,

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Monday,  9 Mar 2015 at 09:05, Richard Lawrence wrote:
>
>> Another option would be to allow clause-ending punctuation in all keys,
>> but introduce some kind of optional syntax to express `this key ends
>
> No, please no!  I would say that the majority of my citations are at the
> end of sentences...  I would end up having to use this additional syntax
> frequently.  I'd rather use syntax to disambiguate the less frequent
> cases and keys with punctuation are those (for me, at least).

I feel the same as you do about this, so here's one more thought for the
thread.  How about this alternative?

We keep the existing syntax for keys, which disallows key-ending
punctuation, but we also allow a second style of key, in which curly
braces surround the key name proper, like:

  @{Doe1999}

Then we can conceivably allow any character at all between the braces,
including punctuation (except `}', which is also a restriction on LaTeX
keys).  That means this type of key should be able to accommodate just
about anything the future may bring.

The opening `{' immediately after the `@' will make this type of key
easy for the parser to distinguish from the first type, and the closing
`}' makes the end of the key unambiguous with respect to following
punctuation.

Tools that insert keys from citation managers can check whether a key
respects the brace-less syntax, and offer to insert it using the second
style when it doesn't.  Or they could be configured to always use this
style, if the user prefers.

And anyone who doesn't need to disambiguate keys from punctuation can
use the brace-less style, which (in my opinion) is easier to read and
type.

What do people think?  

Best,
Richard