regulations_get_cfr_section
regulations_get_cfr_sectionRead-onlyIdempotent
Read the codified text at a CFR location via eCFR — current or as of a past date. Answers "what does 40 CFR 50.1 say today?" and "...as of 2019-01-01?". Three locations: title + part + section for one section; title + part alone for the whole part (large parts can be very long, and their appendices are named rather than inlined; prefer a specific section when you know it); title + appendix for one appendix, passing the identifier exactly as regulations_browse_cfr emits it. eCFR retains historical versions back to roughly 2017; a date before coverage is rejected with guidance. Current single-section reads are served from a synced local mirror when available; the source is reported.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| date | No | Point-in-time date, ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Default current. eCFR retains historical versions back to ~2017; a date before coverage is rejected. | |
| part | No | CFR part within the title (e.g. "50"). Parts can be alphanumeric. Required unless appendix is given, where it is optional but recommended: an appendix identifier is unique within a part, not within a title, so without a part eCFR picks one of the matches. Obtain from regulations_browse_cfr or a Federal Register document's cfrReferences. | |
| title | Yes | CFR title number (1–50). E.g. 40 for "Protection of Environment". | |
| section | No | Section identifier within the part (e.g. "50.1"). Omit to fetch the entire part — large parts can be very long; prefer a specific section when you know it. Cannot be combined with appendix. | |
| appendix | No | Appendix identifier, verbatim as eCFR writes it — the `appendix` field or the leading phrase of the `cfrCite` on a regulations_browse_cfr appendix node or search hit. It is free-form prose, not a letter: "Appendix A-1 to Part 50", "Appendix A to Subpart C of Part 4", "Schedule I to Part 789", "Special Federal Aviation Regulation No. 88". Pass the whole phrase; a short form such as "A-1" matches nothing. Cannot be combined with section. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| date | No | The issue/point-in-time date the text reflects (ISO 8601). | |
| part | No | CFR part; null only for an appendix that hangs off a chapter, subchapter, or subtitle rather than a part. | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| title | No | CFR title number. | |
| source | No | Provenance: the synced mirror, or the live eCFR API. | |
| cfrCite | No | Assembled cite — "40 CFR 50.1" for a section, "40 CFR 50" for a part, "Appendix A-1 to Part 50, Title 40" for an appendix (eCFR's own form, leading with the identifier this tool takes back as `appendix`). | |
| heading | No | Section, part, or appendix heading. | |
| section | No | Section identifier; null when a whole part or an appendix was fetched. | |
| appendix | No | Appendix identifier; null when a section or whole part was fetched. | |
| bodyText | No | Text of the section, part, or appendix, XML stripped to plain text. Paragraphs, subheadings, editorial notes, tables (one pipe-delimited line per row), figure references ("[Figure: /graphics/…]"), and the trailing source citation are kept in document order. The source citation is the bracketed Federal Register history the text ends in ("[36 FR 22384, Nov. 25, 1971, as amended at 81 FR 68276, Oct. 3, 2016]") — pass one of its FR cites to regulations_search_rules to reach the rulemaking that produced this text. Empty only where the location is a placeholder carrying nothing but its heading — "[Reserved]", or an agency variant of it. | |
| sections | No | Present only when a whole part was fetched — each section in the part. | |
| appendices | No | Present on a whole-part fetch when the part has appendices — their identifiers and headings, without their text. A part's appendices routinely run several times the length of its sections, so they are not inlined; call this tool again with `appendix` set to one of these identifiers to read it. Absent means the part has no appendices; a single-section or appendix fetch never carries this field. | |
| hierarchyPath | No | Human-readable hierarchy path. |