arXiv trackbacks - working!

Question

I modified scripts form MathOverflow to scrape arXiv links from question threads and to submit them so one can easily access a question citing a preprint. A lot of thanks to Anton Geraschenko and Scott Morrison for writing the original version and sharing it with us.

arXiv has accepted the first batch, see e.g. http://arxiv.org/tb/quant-ph/0210062. I've sent the rest.

Besides saying 'wow, it works!' I would like to underline two things:

• it is even more beneficial to provide arXiv links (http://arviv.org/abs/...),
• it would be good to be careful when it comes to the titles. If a title is misformatted or misspelled - it is important to fix it ASAP (not to generate untidy trackbacks).

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Comments

Does it work with old style links, à la xxx.lanl.gov ?

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Nice +1!, However, many people link to [inSpire](http://inspirehep.net/) ([e.g.](http://theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com/q/254/70)) instead of arXiv. Can the script be extended to extract the arXiv number from the inSpire link (if it exists) and then create the arXiv trackback?

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@MateusAraújo Yes `arxivSynonyms = '(?:ar[Xx]iv|front\.math\.ucdavis|xxx\.lanl\.gov)'`. @Simon: Everything is possible, but personally I would prefer to grab only arXiv links. The main reason behind is it involves scanning other page (which may or may not contain arXiv links) which may be more error prone. Bear in mind that the current script scans only links so it is not a greedy _send everything what looks like arXivID_ but it sends only things explicitly pointing to arXiv. Of course, it is not a problem to add to a question link to arXiv as well.

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Answer 1

Thanks for doing this, excellent work -- is it something that could be submitted to Stack Apps under the scripts tab?

http://stackapps.com/?tab=scripts

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Comments

Thanks. In the current form it is a Shell/Python script accessing SE via http. So (I guess) before submitting it I should rewrite it to use SE API. Moreover, I made only some modifications to fit the structure of TP.SE (and perhaps other SE2.0 as well); the main authors are Anton and Scott, so I need to ask them if the like the idea.

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ah, so it is an app then. http://stackapps.com/?tab=apps Well, if you can, consider listing it in the directory so others can find it and assist!

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@JeffAtwood: We got the code from the MathOverflow folks, so it seems like it would be inappropriate for us to take it upon ourselves to share their code.

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I would *love* to see this script! @JoeFitzsimons and Piotr: Do you think the MathOverflow peeps would be up for you sharing this version if asked? Any licensing issues etc?

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@MarkS.Everitt I asked Anton & Scott and they are happy to share it under the [MIT Licence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License). :)

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@PiotrMigdal: That's wonderful news!

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