maximum length of Digital Object Identifier?

W

2

18

I want to add a field to my database that stores DOIs. But I can't seem to find out what their maximum length is. Does anyone know if there is a maximum length?

Windowpane answered 7/9, 2011 at 14:9 Comment(0)

W

8

never mind, I found it:

https://www.doi.org/the-identifier/resources/handbook/1_introduction#1.6.3

DOI names have two components, known as the prefix and the suffix. These are separated by a forward slash. The two components together form the DOI name:

10.1000/123456

In this example, the prefix is "10.1000" and the suffix is "123456".

There is no technical limitation on the length of either the prefix or the suffix; in theory, at least, there is an infinite number of DOI names available.

Windowpane answered 7/9, 2011 at 14:10 Comment(2)

I have no idea, this was at my former employer and I have no hope of remembering almost-10-year-old technical details. – Windowpane 12/1, 2021 at 4:30

Oops, I think I looked at the edited date and not the answered date. My bad. Still brings up an interesting question -- at least for someone new to databases like me -- where the spec is so lenient and reality appears to be much more limited. – Lalise 12/1, 2021 at 12:55

C

16

From a 100K sample, I would go for 255 as max length to be on the safe side...

On the y-axis the length of the DOI and on the x-axis you have the count of DOIs. So, we have 20k DOIs out of 100K that have a DOI length of ~63 or more.

Capote answered 25/4, 2017 at 14:41 Comment(1)

can you specify what's on the x and what's on the y? – Doiron 24/6, 2022 at 11:35

W

8