c. 999 but not c. 1000 ?

John P. McCaskey
edited October 24, 2023
Enter c. 999 as the date. In styles that don’t wholly ignore the
c., out comes c 999, without the period.

Sigh.

Ah, I’ll be a clever Zotero-meister. I’ll switch to using the secret Extra field.

Enter issued: c. 999 and out comes c. 999, with the period.

Yay.

But—mystery of mysteries—change that to issued: c. 1000
and out comes 1000, without the c and without the period.

Huh?

Why do dates before 1000 retain the c., but 1000 and after do not? A CSL thing? A citeproc thing? A bug? A feature?

Any way to retain the c. for years after 999?
  • bwiernik
    Enter uncertain dates in Extra like this:

    Issued: 999?
  • John P. McCaskey
    I get the same behavior.

    999?passes through as 999? but 1000? comes through as 1000.

    Also, for my format, I do want c. instead of ?.
  • bwiernik
    edited October 26, 2023
    Sorry, for 3-digit dates, enter as ~0999 or 0999? And for 4-digit dates enter as ~1999 or 1999?

    This indicates to the citation processor that the date is uncertain and should be indicated as such according to the style. Eg, all of the formats above ads “ca. ” before the date in APA style. The characters are not intended to pass through literally, as the format for indicating uncertain dates varies by style.

    If the circa term isn’t showing up, it is likely an issue with how the style is coded.

    What style are you using?
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