Template talk:Code of Federal Regulations

Appendices and some sections cannot be properly linked
I can't find a way to properly cite some sections, e.g., "CFR Title 14 Appendix D to Part 91, Section 1". Standard tempalte doesn't work for appendices, so e.g. doesn't work, along with other things I tried. It may be the case that GPO website's query system itself is not sophisticated enough to allow retrieval of such sections.

Another example is "CFR Title 14 Part 91, Section 1": doesn't work although it should. Here the blame for the problem seems to lie squarely on the GPO website: produces the same error if this section is entered manually.

If anybody knows how to fix any of these problems, please do so.

cherkash (talk) 01:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It appears that the usual frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi doesn't know how to pass these kinds of citations. These are showing up in the GPO text as " [CITE: 14CFR91SFAR60] " and " [CITE: 14CFR91 App E] ".  When I browse for them, it appears that, in its weird way, that system thinks that the SFARs appendeces (e.g. 14 CFR 91 SFAR60) are part of the 14 CFR 91 Table of Contents and that the lettered appendeces (e.g. 14 CFR 91 App E) are part of 14 CFR 91 Subpart L.  I just created an expanded CodeFedReg template tonight; I'll try and introduce a   parameter that at least lets one display the wording for the citation itself.  As for 14 CFR 91.1, it doesn't seem to have any problem at all: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TYPE=TEXT&YEAR=current&TITLE=14&PART=91&SECTION=1 works for me.  Maybe you accidentally used USC (U.S. Code, which has legislative acts) instead of CFR (Code of Federal Regulations, which has administrative regulations)? --Closeapple (talk) 05:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ask and ye shall receive (sort of). I found a URL on GPO Access that seems to work for those bizarre appendix/special section ID, and I've now updated the template to handle this, using a new   parameter.  Behold:
 * → (normal citation; uses get-cfr.cgi as before)
 * → (normal citation; uses get-cfr.cgi as before)
 * → (prefix; uses edocket server)
 * → (prefix; uses edocket server)
 * Heaven help whoever has to edit my template code if it changes, though &mdash; even if it's me later. ;-) I've put my test examples at Template:CodeFedReg/testcases so people can see how it links things. --Closeapple (talk) 08:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Links to LII
The Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII) has a site for linking the CFR which, like their USC site, is easily linked to. Is there any objection to replacing the current (inconsistent) linkage to the GPO with linkage to the LII? It appears to be of the form &lt; http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text// &gt;. Int21h (talk) 21:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If you can make it better, then do it.—GoldRingChip 00:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. I've edited it such that title+part only w/o wikipedia article for title+part will link to LII. Int21h (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

gpo.gov links no longer work
In case anyone is able to fix this, the gpo.gov links produced by this template are now dead, and automatically redirect to the main search page at https://www.govinfo.gov/ Midnight whisper (talk) 11:54, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Still broken as of June 2019. The template should be revised to link to https://ecfr.gov . Moreau1 (talk) 18:02, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Could this template be modified to use the govinfo citation search? That page includes the ability to generate a bookmarkable URL that appears to include all the parameters, albeit in html form. ex: https://www.govinfo.gov/#citation?csh=%7B%22collection%22%3A%22CFR%22%2C%22searchCriteria%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%22cfrPubYear%22%2C%22displayValue%22%3A%22-1%22%7D%2C%7B%22value%22%3A%22cfrtitlenum%22%2C%22displayValue%22%3A%22-1%22%7D%5D%2C%22selectOptions%22%3A%5B%5D%7D Perhaps somebody more skilled than myself can use this to create a working template. IPBilly (talk) 13:02, 15 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I think the new eCFR.FederalRegister.gov web service is the best way to go: e.g. https://ecfr.federalregister.gov/current/title-1/part-5 or https://ecfr.federalregister.gov/current/title-1/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-5 or even https://ecfr.federalregister.gov/current/title-1/section-5.1 it seems pretty intuitive about URL structure; title + section, or title + part, should be all that's needed to construct the URL. There's also the GPO govinfo Link Service might be a good solution. E.g. https://www.govinfo.gov/link/cfr/1/5 for 1 CFR 5; It only appears to accept title and title + part division. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 18:32, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated Template:CodeFedReg/sandbox and Template:CodeFedReg/testcases. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 19:51, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I've changed the template to use https://eCFR.FederalRegister.gov/. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 20:56, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

No way to modify link structure
I just made this edit to HIPAA, and if you look at the Legislative information section you'll see that the repeated use of "45 C.F.R." is unnecessary. Before this edit, the line read "45 C.F.R. 160, 162, and 164", but the "162" and "164" were not linked. Ideally, we could use the USCFR template to link to these but specify a new link text through a template parameter. Thoughts?

- AlphaWeaver (talk) 03:29, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Most parameters seem unimplemented now
It looks like only parameters 1, 2, and 3 are used right now. It seems the rest got lost when retargetting the links (sounds like the old website got decommissioned):

The Template:CodeFedReg/testcases page has examples that should be useful in reimplementing them. &mdash;SamB (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm also having trouble because the template always links to "current" in the URL, even when I need to link to an old version, e.g. https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2017-01-03/title-32/part-154 for year=2017. -- Beland (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2023 (UTC)