# Shortcut Link Questions

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/shortcut-link-questions/3582>\
**Category:** Spec\
**Created:** [August 8, 2020, 11:33pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/shortcut-link-questions/3582 "2020-08-08T23:33:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![theory](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/theory/32/2005_2.png) [@theory](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/theory)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/shortcut-link-questions/3582/4 "2020-08-09T16:19:05Z")

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[Example 561](https://spec.commonmark.org/0.29/#example-561) is perhaps a simpler example of the same issue:

```auto

[foo][bar]

[foo]: /url1

[bar]: /url2

```

Output

```auto

<p><a href="/url2">foo</a></p>

```

This is because the spec says “Full and compact references take precedence over shortcut references". But the author, who took the time to disambiguate the references by including them both in the link reference, may find it confusing, expecting, instead:

```auto

<p><a href="/url1">foo</a><a href="/url2">bar</a></p>

```

I get that the parser needs to determine precedence, and I certainly wouldn’t expect anything different if `[foo]` wasn’t referenced in the link reference, e.g.,

```auto

[foo][bar]

[baz]: /url1

[bar]: /url2

```

But when I as the author have explicitly defined the labels in the references, as in example 561, I would think that would take precedence over the parer’s idea of precedence. IOW, the references should take precedence over the order of brackets in the text, because they’re explicit, and demonstrate the author’s intent.

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