[xml2rfc] Date format -- Re: Strange behavior with a DOI reference include

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 2020-12-15, at 04:47, Robert Moskowitz <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>     <date year="n.d.”/>

That triggers an issue in RFCXML V3 that so far was papered over by the v2v3 converter.

In v2, if you want to have non-numeric information in the date field (e.g., “n.d.” for no date), you put it into the year attribute of the date element:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7749#section-2.13

In v3, this was changed:  The date element got content, which is supposed to be used for dates that do not clearly have year/month/day.  Actually:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7991#section-2.17 still says it’s the way it was in v2, but 

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-levkowetz-xml2rfc-v3-implementation-notes-11#section-4.1.3

reneges and the documentation that comes with xml2rfc (the URI for which I forget) has more details on the change.  

The bibxml data generated from DOIs don’t know that.

If you convert a v2 document into v3, non-numeric year data will be moved into the content of <date>.  If you import bibxml data into a document that is putatively v3, that breaks for a non-numeric date.

(There also is a question whether doilit should apply a heuristic to generate a date even if the DOI data say

{"issued":{"date-parts":[[null]]}}

which I think is breakage.  But that is orthogonal to be above issue.)

Grüße, Carsten