From: Vebjorn Ljosa
Subject: CL-ISBN: Parsing, validating, and formatting ISBNs
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:08:41 +0000
Message-ID: <1121393321.928772.134200@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

Hi

I recently needed functions for validating ISBNs (they have a check
digit) and formatting them properly, i.e., placing the hyphens in the
proper places.  For instance, 0-201-17589-4 and 1-59059-239-5 have the
hyphens in different places.

The formatting rules vary by area (country, language area, or
geographic region), so I ended up with a little library that consults a
large table in order to get the formatting right.  I have put it on the
web, in case there are others that need to handle ISBNs.

The library and its documentation can be found at
<URL:http://www.ljosa.com/~ljosa/software/cl-isbn/>.  The library can
handle both 10-digit ISBNs, which we have all seen, as they have been
around since 1970, and the new 13-digit ISBNs, which will come into use
in 2007.

Suggestions for improvements to the interface are welcome.

Thanks,
Vebjorn

From: N. Raghavendra
Subject: Re: CL-ISBN: Parsing, validating, and formatting ISBNs
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 08:24:16 +0000
Message-ID: <86pstka34f.fsf@riemann.mri.ernet.in>

At 2005-07-14T19:08:41-07:00, Vebjorn Ljosa wrote:

> I recently needed functions for validating ISBNs (they have a check
> digit) and formatting them properly,

You may be interested also in Nelson Beebe's Emacs Lisp library
`isbn':

  http://www.netlib.org/bibnet/tools/emacs/isbn.el

Raghavendra.

-- 
N. Raghavendra <·····@mri.ernet.in> | See message headers for contact
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