[New French style] How to use dates as a variable (i.e. book before 1900: name behave a certain way)

Hello,

A fantastic librarian at the Sorbonne and myself have been working on a new style for Literature in French for almost a year and it's almost there.

One final issue seems to arise : in French, classical authors are often only referred to by their last name (i.e : Denis Diderot would just be Diderot).
But for contemporary authors, and more so for non-literary authors, it is not the case, and we must cite First and Last Name.
I thought a way to get around that might be if it was possible to have a variable in the author-name macro to say : if date or original-date is before 1900, name = Last Name, if else, name = First and Last Name.
Does anyone know if that could work ?

Thanks !
  • CSL doesn't allow you to test for the content of variables, sorry.
    That said, CSL 1.0.2 has an item type "classic" that you could use to style references differently. That does currently require custom data entry (putting
    type: classic into the Extra field), though.
  • Oh great ! I had no idea the type existed. Even better! Thanks so much !
    If the reference is a book, and I had "type: classic" in the extra field, will it act as a book except when something is specified for "type: classic"?
    or will it be perceived as a completely separate type and we have to add it everywhere in the macro to tell it how to behave ?
  • It will be a completely separate type. You would want to edit your CSL style to add classic next to book where needed
  • Ok, thanks a lot !
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