Re: Formal syntax for org-cite

[Timothy]

Hi Nicolas,

Thanks you for your feedback and clarifications. They were most helpful.
Thomas, I've also made a few tweaks based on your reply.
I've revised the draft in light of your comments, see below.

Citations follow the pattern
#+begin_example
[cite CITESTYLE: GLOBALPREFIX KEYCITES GLOBALSUFFIX]
#+end_example
where "cite" and =CITESTYLE=, =KEYCITES= and =GLOBALSUFFIX= are /not/
separated by whitespace. Whitespace after the leading colon or before
the closing square bracket is not significant. All other whitespace is
significant.

The only mandatory component, =KEYCITES= consists of one or more
instances of the following pattern, separated by semicolons,
#+begin_example
KEYPREFIX @KEY KEYSUFFIX
#+end_example
where =KEYPREFIX=, =@KEY=, and =KEYSUFFIX= are /not/ separated by
whitespace.

=KEY= can be made of any word-constituent character, =-=, =.=, =:=, =?=,
=!=, =`=, ='=, =/=, =*=, =@=, =+=, =|=, =(=, =)=, ={=, =}=, =<=, =>=,
=&=, =_=, =^=, =$=, =#=, =%=, or =~=.

=KEYPREFIX= and =KEYSUFFIX= are optional and can contain any characters
other than a semicolon (=;=), so long as square brackets are balanced.
=KEYPREFIX= cannot contain any subsequence that forms a =KEY=.

Hence, a minimal citation is formed by the pattern ~[cite:@KEY]~.

=CITESTYLE= consists of a main =STYLE= and optionally a =VARIANT=​.
Both the =STYLE= and =VARIANT= are prefixed by a forwards slash.
#+begin_example
/STYLE/VARIANT
#+end_example
=STYLE= and =VARIANT= can be made of any alphanumeric character, =_=, or
=-=.  Additionally, =VARIANT= can itself contain forward slashes (=/=) .

=GLOBALPREFIX= and =GLOBALSUFFIX= can contain the same characters as
=KEYPREFIX= and =KEYSUFFIX=. In the same manner as instances of the
=KEYCITES= pattern, =KEYCITES=, =GLOBALPREFIX=, and =GLOBALSUFFIX= must
be separated by semicolons.

--
Timothy