zepinglee
random suffixes for years in bibliography
Hi! I'm experiencing some curiosities with my bibliography: Two, I believe random, entries in my bibliography have a small letter as a suffix after the year: Parlamentsdirektion (1966a) or Stepan, Max (2024b)
However, I only have one entry from the authors Parlamentsdirektion from 1966 and Max Stepan from 2024 in my .bib and used in my document – so I have no idea where these suffixes come from (I have other content from other years by these two authors in my .bib, but not from 1966 or 2024). Instead it should read like this: Parlamentsdirektion (1966) or Stepan, Max (2024). And: These suffixes do not appear in the in-line citation, online in the bibliography at the end of the document.
Perhaps it has something to do with this error message?
Module citeproc Warning: No date variable for year-suffix
This is my citation style: mw-bachelorarbeit.csl.txt
And these are the entries for the two examples in my .bib:
@misc{parlamentsdirektion_stenographisches_1966,
title = {Stenographisches {Protokoll} der 20. {Sitzung} des {Nationalrats} vom 8. {Juli} 1966 (20/{NRSITZ} {XI}. {GP})},
url = {https://www.parlament.gv.at/gegenstand/XI/NRSITZ/20},
urldate = {2025-08-05},
journal = {Parlament: Protokolle},
author = {{Parlamentsdirektion}},
month = aug,
year = {1966},
keywords = {Daten},
}
@misc{stepan_2024_2024,
title = {2024 bringt neuerlich eine {Flut} an {Volksbegehren}},
shorttitle = {Direkte {Demokratie}},
url = {https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000202567/2024-bringt-neuerlich-eine-flut-an-volksbegehren},
urldate = {2025-08-05},
journal = {derStandard.at},
author = {Stepan, Max},
month = oct,
year = {2024},
}
The whole entries in the bibliography look like this:
Stepan, Max (2024b): 2024 Bringt neuerlich eine Flut an Volksbegehren. In: derStandard.at. Link: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000202567/2024-bringt-neuerlich-eine-flut-an-volksbegehren (Zugriff: 5.8.2025).
Parlamentsdirektion (1966a): Stenographisches Protokoll der 20. Sitzung des Nationalrats vom 8. Juli 1966 (20/NRSITZ XI. GP). In: Parlament: Protokolle. Link: https://www.parlament.gv.at/gegenstand/XI/NRSITZ/20 (Zugriff: 5.8.2025).
Please let me know if you need any additional information. Thanks a lot again for your support!
Unfortunately I can't reproduce the extra year suffix (see the test file issue-99.lvt and the result issue-99.tlg).
https://github.com/zepinglee/citeproc-lua/blob/5f23851408a3b7094f1b687b538d34e533208d79/tests/latex/luatex-2/issue-99.tlg#L22-L26
The second printed author name in the citation is Stepan rather than Stepan, Max where the disambiguation doesn't work. Is there another cited entry whose author has the same surname "Stepan"?
No, as far as I know, there isn't. Thanks for trying! Is there any way I could share an entire LaTeX project with you privately so you could try it out, or would you even be willing to do that?
No, as far as I know, there isn't. Thanks for trying! Is there any way I could share an entire LaTeX project with you privately so you could try it out, or would you even be willing to do that?
You can share the Overleaf project with my account [email protected]. Another method is providing the .bib files and all \*cite* commands used in the document.
Thanks for the possibility to do that! I just invited you to the Overleaf project.
I can reproduce the bug with the following minimal document. It is mainly because the two ebd. (ibid.) citation results are mistakenly treated as ambiguous and citeproc-lua adds the year suffix for disambiguation.
This bug is difficult to fix because it requires rewriting a lot of disambiguation code. It's likely to take some time.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=mw-bachelorarbeit]{citation-style-language}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
\cite[vgl.][]{stepan_2024_2024}.
\cite[vgl.][]{stepan_2024_2024}.
\cite[vgl.][1534-1603]{parlamentsdirektion_stenographisches_1966}.
\cite[vgl.][1534-1603]{parlamentsdirektion_stenographisches_1966}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
Thank you for trying again and fixing the bug as soon as you have time – I am very grateful for your work.
There seems to be another problem regarding the suffixes: At this example two suffixes at the In-Line-Citations should appear (as they do in the bibliography) – but they're missing.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=mw-bachelorarbeit]{citation-style-language}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
\begin{document}
\cite[vgl.][69-89]{parlamentsdirektion_stenographisches_2019}
\cite[vgl.][]{parlamentsdirektion_volksbegehren_2018}
\cite[[vgl.]][3]{parlamentsdirektion_selbstandiger_2019}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
There seems to be another problem regarding the suffixes: At this example two suffixes at the In-Line-Citations should appear (as they do in the bibliography) – but they're missing.
Are you referring to "S. 69-89" and "S. 3"? They are called "locators" rather than "suffixes" in CSL terminology if inputted from citation commands and the are not expected to appear in the bibliography. This is similar to APA's specification which says "do not cite a specific part of a source in the reference list" (see https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/parts-source).
It is still possible to cite pages in the bibliography via the CSL field page (not from citations). Some item types in Zotero don't have pagefields and you can add them in theextrafield instead (e.g.,Pages: 69-89`, see https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields#citing_fields_from_extra).
BTW I don't find these entries in the .bib file in the overleaf project. It is preferred to provide the relevant BibTeX entries so that I can directly reproduce it.
Oh, I am sorry, this is the new .bib-file:
I am referring to the fact that—in this case—the suffixes used for disambiguation do not appear in the inline citations but only in the bibliography. To my knowledge, the two inline citations of Parlamentsdirektion from 2019 should look like this:
(vgl. Parlamentsdirektion 2019b, S. 69–89) and
(vgl. Parlamentsdirektion 2019a, S. 3) but the a and b (in the bibliography appearing as suffix after the year to disambiguate between the two sources) are missing at the inline citations.
Oh, I am sorry, this is the new
.bib-file:I am referring to the fact that—in this case—the suffixes used for disambiguation do not appear in the inline citations but only in the bibliography. To my knowledge, the two inline citations of Parlamentsdirektion from 2019 should look like this:
(vgl. Parlamentsdirektion 2019b, S. 69–89)and(vgl. Parlamentsdirektion 2019a, S. 3)but the a and b (in the bibliography appearing as suffix after the year to disambiguate between the two sources) are missing at the inline citations.
Yes, now I've noticed the missing year suffixes in citations. This is a systematic problem in the disambiguation procedure and I need to study the citeproc-js implementation.
This problem is tracked in #104.