_publ_author_name is not a good key for _publ_author

[James Hester]

It would be great to use ORCID, but not everyone has one.

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 at 19:54, Herbert J. Bernstein <yayahjb at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear James,
>   Having an unambiguous key is a fine idea, but shouldn't it just be the
> ORCID id, as in _publ_aithor_id_orcid
>   Regards,
>     Herbert
>
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 12:51 AM James Hester via coreDMG <
> coredmg at iucr.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear Core DMG,
>>
>> Please see proposed new definitions for the publ_author category, as
>> suggested in my previous email (below). If no objections are forthcoming, I
>> will be updating the dictionary a week from today.  Note that this change
>> will in turn pave the way for adding author roles to a CIF file.
>>
>> best wishes,
>> James.
>> ===========
>>
>> save_PUBL_AUTHOR
>>
>> _definition.id                          PUBL_AUTHOR
>> _definition.scope                       Category
>> _definition.class                       Loop
>> _definition.update                      2020-06-30
>> _description.text
>> ;
>>      Category of data items recording the author information.
>> ;
>> _name.category_id                       PUBL
>> _name.object_id                         PUBL_AUTHOR
>> _category.key_id                        '_publ_author.id'
>> loop_
>>   _category_key.name
>>          '_publ_author.id'
>>
>> save_
>>
>> save_publ_author.id
>>     _definition.id              '_publ_author.id'
>>     _definition.update          2020-06-30
>>     _description.text
>> ;              Arbitrary identifier for this author
>> ;
>>     _name.category_id                       publ_author
>>     _name.object_id                         id
>>     _type.purpose                           Key
>>     _type.source                             Assigned
>>     _type.container                         Single
>>     _type.contents                          Code
>> save_
>>
>> On Tue, 26 Mar 2019 at 17:28, James Hester <jamesrhester at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Core CIF group,
>>>
>>> The publ_author category has _publ_author.name as the category key,
>>> meaning that _publ_author.name can be used to select a unique row of
>>> the loop. However, it has been pointed out that _publ_author.name is
>>> insufficient as a key for the _publ_author loop, as some authors have the
>>> same name (there are apparently 40 entries in the COD with this feature).
>>> One way to fix this is to add a further disambiguating data name to
>>> _publ_author. The suggestion is that something like "_publ_author.id"
>>> could be defined, which would contain an arbitrary code and which would be
>>> added to the category key.  The lack of this dataname in historical CIFs
>>> can be worked around by assuming it has a constant value, and CIF curators
>>> can auto-generate it when a situation is encountered with multiple
>>> identically-named authors.
>>>
>>> An alternative approach would be to define "_publ_author.id" as the new
>>> key of the category that can be auto-generated from each packet. While in a
>>> formal sense this makes all current CIFs non-conformant, I can't imagine
>>> that it would affect most software, which will continue to work with _
>>> publ_author.name.
>>>
>>> Please indicate your preference or alternative solutions. Particularly
>>> important is the perspective of software authors who may be impacted.
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> James.
>>>
>>> --
>>> T +61 (02) 9717 9907
>>> F +61 (02) 9717 3145
>>> M +61 (04) 0249 4148
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> T +61 (02) 9717 9907
>> F +61 (02) 9717 3145
>> M +61 (04) 0249 4148
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>

-- 
T +61 (02) 9717 9907
F +61 (02) 9717 3145
M +61 (04) 0249 4148
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