designator Designator

Used on such elements as edition number (<edition>) and version (<version>) to hold an unadorned numeric or alphabetic value of the edition or version number for machine search, when the number is a phrase or textual value.

Usage/Remarks

When an edition, version, or similar statement contains ordinals (such as “3rd”) or words such as “3rd print edition”, this attribute can preserve the edition/version number as a simple, machine-processable number, such as “3”.
OPTIONAL on many elements; click for list and usage
Value Meaning
The numeral or alphabetic character(s) that indicates the version number, edition number, etc. The unadorned number that indicates the simple, machine-processable value of the element’s content. Typically this is a number such as “4” or an alphabetic character such as “A”, while the element content may contain ordinals or other text.
Restriction @designator is an optional attribute; there is no default.
Tagged Sample

An edition number

...
<mixed-citation>
 <collab>National Committee for Clinical Laboratory
 Standards</collab>. <source>Performance standards for 
 antimicrobial disk susceptibility tests</source>.
 <comment>Approved standard</comment>.
 <edition designator="7">7<sup>th</sup> ed.</edition>
 p. <fpage>M2</fpage>&ndash;<lpage>A7</lpage>.
 ...
</mixed-citation>
...