Square brackets for "et al."

maras

I am creating custom style and I need square brackets around et. al. for authors and editors:

Adam Smith [et al.]

I wrote such a macro: <macro name="editor">
<names variable="editor" font-style="normal" delimiter=", ">
<name delimiter-precedes-et-al="always" delimiter-precedes-last="always" et-al-min="4" et-al-use-first="1" initialize="false" initialize-with=". " sort-separator=" "/>
<et-al term="and others" prefix="[" suffix="]"/>
<label form="short" prefix=" (" suffix=")"/>
</names>
</macro> And similar code is for the authors. But there is no luck at all – I don't see any brackets. What I am doing wrong?

Style is for MLZ (4.0m350) and validates against 1.1mlz1 scheme.

adamsmith

cs:et-al doesn't take affixes.
http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#et-al

My recommendation would be to define the et al. term with square brackets as in
<locale xml:lang="en">
<terms>
<term name="et-al">[et al.]</term>
</terms>
</locale>

If you also need an et al without brackets in the same style, you can redefine (and set) "and others" for that purpose.

maras

I see. Thank you for explanation.
I did that even before appending affixes to "et al." and result was quite strange:

Adam Smith[et al.]

– there is no delimiter before "et al." at all. Removing only bracket-preffix in term definition curates that:

Adam Smith, et al.]

Is it bug?

fbennett

@maras: Looks like a bug to me. I'll look into it. More soon.

adamsmith

that said, though, adding the space in the term definition works, i.e.
<locale xml:lang="en">
<terms>
<term name="et-al"> [et al.]</term>
</terms>
</locale>
gets you what you want.

fbennett

@adamsmith: Aha, so there was reason behind this. I'll leave things as they are.

@maras: Use the method suggested by adamsmith. Thanks for pointing out that this validates. I should restrict affixes on et-al in the extended schema to prevent confusion.

maras

@adamsmith: Yes, that did the trick. Thank you.

I must add comma in the term definition to get comma before "et al." into the reference. And MLZ automatic terms change by language isn't working (I must add appropriate translations of term to all locales to get it working). But that is very small bug ant there is good workaround.

@fbennet: Glad to help you.

fbennett

@maras: If it's the "UI" language selection, yes, that's not working at the moment. I'm getting ready for another client release, I'll try to get it fixed before that goes out.