Resolve a legislation citation
uklaw_lookup_citationRead-onlyIdempotent
Resolve a citation or short title to the canonical legislation.gov.uk item and provision: "Data Protection Act 2018 s. 45", "2018 c. 12", "S.I. 2019/419", "S.S.I. 2020/123", "S.R. 2020/12", "2020 asp 13", "Regulation (EU) 2016/679 art. 28", a legislation.gov.uk URI, or a short title. Returns the item path to pass to uklaw_get_document, and when a provision is given, whether it exists in the current version. A miss or an ambiguous title is a result with found false plus guidance or candidates, not an error. To find legislation by topic or by partial title words rather than a known citation, use uklaw_search_legislation.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| citation | Yes | A citation ("2018 c. 12", "S.I. 2019/419 reg. 5", "Regulation (EU) 2016/679 art. 28"), a short title ("Data Protection Act 2018 s. 45(2)(f)"), or a legislation.gov.uk URI. uklaw_list_reference topic citation_formats lists the accepted forms. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| item | No | Canonical item path, e.g. ukpga/2018/12 — pass to uklaw_get_document; present when found. | |
| type | No | Canonical type code (a Welsh SI cited as uksi comes back as wsi); present when found. | |
| year | No | Calendar year of the item; absent when not known, e.g. a regnal-year item resolved from its path. | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| found | No | True when the citation resolved to exactly one item. | |
| title | No | Item title; absent when it could not be fetched within the call. | |
| id_uri | No | Canonical identifier URI of the item; present when found. | |
| number | No | Item number within the year; present when found. | |
| parsed | No | The citation as the parser read it. | |
| guidance | No | What to do next after a miss, ambiguity, or a check that could not run. | |
| title_cy | No | Welsh title, for bilingual items. | |
| made_date | No | Date enacted or made (YYYY-MM-DD); absent when not fetched or not reported. | |
| candidates | No | Candidate items (at most 20) when the citation is ambiguous. | |
| type_label | No | Human label of the type; present when found. | |
| attribution | No | Attribution lines the returned content requires (OGL always; EU and Westlaw credits when applicable). | |
| document_uri | No | legislation.gov.uk page for the item; present when found. | |
| provision_uri | No | Identifier URI of that provision, alongside provision_path. | |
| provision_path | No | Provision path the citation named, when it named one and the item was found. | |
| provision_found | No | Whether the provision exists in the current version; absent when the check could not run. |