--citation-abbreviations=FILE crashes on Zotero abbreviations.json

[stroobandt]

pandoc 2.11.4
Compiled with pandoc-types 1.22, texmath 0.12.1, skylighting 0.10.2,
citeproc 0.3.0.5, ipynb 0.1.0.1

The --citation-abbreviations=FILE option in Pandoc is incompatible in two ways with the following recent journal title abbreviation JSON file in the Zotero repository: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zotero/zotero/master/resource/schema/abbreviations.json

1. An "info" block at the beginning crashes citeproc.

{
    "info": {
        "URI": "http://www.zotero.org/abbreviations/default.json",
        "name": "MEDLINE + Title Word Abbreviations"
    },
    "default": {
        "container-title": {
            "academia peruana de cirugia": "Acad. Peru. Cir.",

CiteprocParseError: Could not parse abbreviations file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zotero/zotero/master/resource/schema/abbreviations.json
Error in $.info.URI: parsing Map failed, expected Object, but encountered String

2. Title word fallback with "container-title-word" is ignored. The word substitution rules are never applied. An example list can be found in the second part of the above mentioned JSON file.

        "container-title-word": {
            "aachener": "Aachen.",
            "aakkos-": "aakkos.",

[jgm]

I didn't know about word substitution rules (these are probably newer than our code for handling abbreviations, which is quite old). Is there comprehensive documentation of the abbreviations.json format somewhere?

[stroobandt]

@jgm Neither did I find any significant information about abbreviations JSON:

• The Zotero knowledge base is eerily silent about this topic.
• Fora refer to the following archived web page.
• @rmzelle is a member of the CSL organisation and may help out when personally messaged.

[stroobandt]

Being able to use more than one title abbreviation list at once, as suggested here, certainly makes sense in a setting of interdisciplinary studies.

[badumont]

There is no formal documentation about it, only some hints on the Zotero forum. The code starts from here.

Another incompatibility is that citeproc.js expects normalized strings for full titles in abbreviations.json. The rules are as follow:

• Convert to lowercase
• Remove the following words: and et y und la le the l' d'
• Remove the following characters: ! " # $ % & ' ( * ) + , . / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~ ;
• Normalize spaces

So, to be matched, the title Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam must be written jerusalem studies in arabic islam in the JSON file.

I am not sure that it is advisable to follow the same path. Or it could be proposed as an option.