Zotero biblatex import ignore 'date' field

Denis Bitouzé

Hi,

when Zotero imports .bib files, it ignores the 'date' field and only the legacy (but deprecated) 'year' field is taken into account, as pointed out by the following minimal .bib file:

@book{dateyear,
  author = {Foo, Bar},
  title = {A Foo Title},
  date = {2013}
}
@book{dateyearmonth,
  author = {Foo, Bar},
  title = {A Foo Title},
  date = {2013-11}
}
@book{dateyearmonthday,
  author = {Foo, Bar},
  title = {A Foo Title},
  date = {2013-11-14}
}
@book{year,
  author = {Foo, Bar},
  title = {A Foo Title},
  year = {2013}
}

Would it be possible to improve this point?

Thanks in advance.

adamsmith

I don't see why we shouldn't implement reading date (and urldate if we don't already)
@noksagt, if you're around and have an opinion on this that'd be helpful.

noksagt

Yes: we should import the date. The format is: YYYY(-MM(-DD))(/YYYY(-MM(-DD)). So a 4 digit year is required. A month is optional. If it is present, a day is optional. There is also the ability to express a range by using the slash.

(It should be noted that I disagree that the 'datepart' fields such as 'year' are deprecated. The BibLaTeX manual does not consider them deprecated & biblatex separates date/urldate/origdate/eventdate/etc. into the separate datepart fields behind the scenes. This doesn't matter when we talk about what we should import. But it does matter when we talk about what to export. In the BibTeX translator, we should continue to export to the datepart fields & the motivation to change behavior for the BibLaTeX translator is smaller than the phrasing would suggest.)

There are likely other BibLaTeX fields we should be importing as well...

adamsmith

yep, I was thinking import only, I figured this was the case for export.
I'll work on it - not sure how quickly I'll get to it.

edit: just to avoid confusion, in noksagt's comment above that should read
" This doesn't matter when we talk about what we should import."

adamsmith

that was easy - just pushed the update
A translator fix is now up. Your version of Zotero will automatically update within 24hs, or you can update manually using the "Update Now" button in the "General" tab of the Zotero preferences.

Any further problems let us know & thanks for reporting

(Zotero can't handle date ranges properly, that's unrelated to bibtex import - once those work, we should be able to also import them)