Can't add an item with DOI

alkorang
edited July 20, 2023
Hi, I tried to add a paper with the following DOI, but it didn't work. From "https://" to "CO;2-M" is the DOI link. You should copy the entire line to the browser to access this paper.

https://doi.org/10.1002/1096-9128(200005)12:6%3C375::AID-CPE480%3E3.0.CO;2-M

Debug ID: D358717341
  • alkorang
    edited July 20, 2023
    It turned out that Zotero failed to import because DOI wasn't added to Zotero's DB. Adding the paper with DOI works after I imported BibTex of the paper.
  • dstillman
    No, that's a misunderstanding. Add Item by Identifier doesn't have anything to do with what's already in your library.

    That DOI isn't working via Add Item by Identifier because it's not a DOI — it's a URL, and the angled brackets are percent-encoded. The actual DOI is 10.1002/1096-9128(200005)12:6<375::AID-CPE480>3.0.CO;2-M.

    We could consider automatically decoding URLs pasted into Add Item by Identifier if you paste the full URL. If you just copy the "10.1002…" part out of a URL and it contains percent-encoded characters, I don't think it's really Zotero's job to fix that — DOIs can technically contain any characters, so we'd really have to make two lookups both pre- and post-decoding. Maybe we could special-case %3C followed by %3E, though, which would be a pretty clear sign that this was a percent-encoded DOI.
  • alkorang
    Yes, the second comment is my misunderstanding. It is not related to what I added to the library.

    I always entered the DOI http URLs because they are easier to find. Add Item by Identifier never failed so far. It seems none of those URLs had a percent-encoded character.

    It'll be good if Zotero can decode the percentage-encoded DOI URL.
  • DWL-SDCA
    That DOI violates several of the excluded character rules. Zotero may not recognize these as DOIs.

    In particular, the use of hexadecimal codes for angle brackets and other symbols is tolerated for only some pre-2008 publications where the DOI was assigned then.

    See:
    https://www.crossref.org/documentation/member-setup/constructing-your-dois/

    Only use approved characters: DOI suffixes can be any alphanumeric string that includes combinations the following approved characters:
    Letters of the Roman alphabet, A-Z (see below on case insensitivity)
    Numbers, 0-9
    -._;()/ (hyphen, period, underscore, semicolon, parentheses, forward slash). Note that em and en dashes and colons are not approved characters.

    More about special characters especially pre-2008 :
    https://www.crossref.org/documentation/member-setup/constructing-your-dois/suffixes-containing-special-characters/

    Suffixes are case insensitive, so 10.1006/abc is the same in the system as 10.1006/ABC. Note that using lowercase is better for accessibility.

  • poettli
    Related to https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/330164/#Comment_330164
  • dstillman
    edited July 20, 2023
    That DOI violates several of the excluded character rules. Zotero may not recognize these as DOIs.
    No, that's incorrect. The problem is exactly what I say above. This is a valid DOI from 2000, and Zotero has no problem with it — Zotero needs to work on all DOIs, so newer rules are irrelevant. The sole problem here is that @alkorang is pasting in a percent-encoded DOI from a URL and Zotero doesn't currently recognize that.
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