refer
preprocess bibliographic references for groff
see also :
indxbib - lookbib - lkbib
Synopsis
refer
[ -benvCPRS ]
[ -an ]
[ -cfields ]
[ -fn ]
[ -ifields ]
[ -kfield ]
[ -lm,n ]
[ -pfilename ]
[ -sfields ]
[ -tn ]
[ -Bfield.macro ]
[ filename... ]
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
no example yet ...
... Feel free to add your own example above to help other Linux-lovers !
description
This file
documents the GNU version of refer, which is part of
the groff document formatting system. refer copies
the contents of filename... to the standard output,
except that lines between .[ and .] are
interpreted as citations, and lines between .R1 and
.R2 are interpreted as commands about how citations
are to be processed.
Each citation
specifies a reference. The citation can specify a reference
that is contained in a bibliographic database by giving a
set of keywords that only that reference contains.
Alternatively it can specify a reference by supplying a
database record in the citation. A combination of these
alternatives is also possible.
For each
citation, refer can produce a mark in the text. This
mark consists of some label which can be separated from the
text and from other labels in various ways. For each
reference it also outputs groff commands that can be
used by a macro package to produce a formatted reference for
each citation. The output of refer must therefore be
processed using a suitable macro package. The
-ms and -me macros are both
suitable. The commands to format a citation’s
reference can be output immediately after the citation, or
the references may be accumulated, and the commands output
at some later point. If the references are accumulated, then
multiple citations of the same reference will produce a
single formatted reference.
The
interpretation of lines between .R1 and .R2 as
commands is a new feature of GNU refer. Documents
making use of this feature can still be processed by Unix
refer just by adding the lines
.de R1
.ig R2
..
to the beginning of the
document. This will cause troff to ignore everything
between .R1 and .R2. The effect of some
commands can also be achieved by options. These options are
supported mainly for compatibility with Unix refer. It is
usually more convenient to use commands.
refer
generates .lf lines so that filenames and line
numbers in messages produced by commands that read
refer output will be correct; it also interprets
lines beginning with .lf so that filenames and line
numbers in the messages and .lf lines that it
produces will be accurate even if the input has been
preprocessed by a command such as soelim(1).
options
It is possible
to have whitespace between a command line option and its
parameter.
Most options
are equivalent to commands (for a description of these
commands see the Commands subsection):
-b
no-label-in-text; no-label-in-reference
-e
accumulate
-n
no-default-database
-C
compatible
-P
move-punctuation
-S
label "(A.n|Q) ’, ’ (D.y|D)";
bracket-label " (" ) "; "
-an
reverse An
-cfields
capitalize
fields
-ifields
search-ignore
fields
-kfield
label
field~%a
-l
label A.nD.y%a
-lm
label A.n+mD.y%a
-l,n
label A.nD.y-n%a
-lm,n
label
A.n+mD.y-n%a
-pfilename
database
filename
-sspec
sort spec
-tn
search-truncate n
These options
are equivalent to the following commands with the addition
that the filenames specified on the command line are
processed as if they were arguments to the
bibliography command instead of in the normal
way:
-B
annotate X AP;
no-label-in-reference
-Bfield.macro
annotate field
macro; no-label-in-reference
The following
options have no equivalent commands:
-v
Print the version number.
-R
Don’t recognize lines beginning with
.R1/.R2.
environment
files
/usr/dict/papers/Ind
Default database.
file.i
Index files.
refer uses temporary files. See the groff(1) man
page for details where such files are created.
refer
If set, overrides the default database.
usage
Bibliographic databases
The bibliographic database is a text file consisting of records
separated by one or more blank lines. Within each record fields
start with a % at the beginning of a line. Each field has
a one character name that immediately follows the %. It is
best to use only upper and lower case letters for the names of
fields. The name of the field should be followed by exactly one
space, and then by the contents of the field. Empty fields are
ignored. The conventional meaning of each field is as follows:
A
The name of an author. If the name contains a title such as
Jr. at the end, it should be separated from the last name
by a comma. There can be multiple occurrences of the A
field. The order is significant. It is a good idea always to
supply an A field or a Q field.
B
For an article that is part of a book, the title of the book.
C
The place (city) of publication.
D
The date of publication. The year should be specified in full. If
the month is specified, the name rather than the number of the
month should be used, but only the first three letters are
required. It is a good idea always to supply a D field; if
the date is unknown, a value such as in press or
unknown can be used.
E
For an article that is part of a book, the name of an editor of
the book. Where the work has editors and no authors, the names of
the editors should be given as A fields and
, (ed) or , (eds) should be appended to
the last author.
G
US Government ordering number.
I
The publisher (issuer).
J
For an article in a journal, the name of the journal.
K
Keywords to be used for searching.
L
Label.
N
Journal issue number.
O
Other information. This is usually printed at the end of the
reference.
P
Page number. A range of pages can be specified as
m-n.
Q
The name of the author, if the author is not a person. This will
only be used if there are no A fields. There can only be
one Q field.
R
Technical report number.
S
Series name.
T
Title. For an article in a book or journal, this should be the
title of the article.
V
Volume number of the journal or book.
X
Annotation.
For all fields except A and E, if there is more
than one occurrence of a particular field in a record, only the
last such field will be used.
If accent strings are used, they should follow the character to
be accented. This means that the AM macro must be used
with the -ms macros. Accent strings should not be quoted:
use one \ rather than two.
Citations
The format of a citation is
.[opening-text
flags keywords
fields
.]closing-text
The opening-text, closing-text and flags
components are optional. Only one of the keywords and
fields components need be specified.
The keywords component says to search the bibliographic
databases for a reference that contains all the words in
keywords. It is an error if more than one reference if
found.
The fields components specifies additional fields to
replace or supplement those specified in the reference. When
references are being accumulated and the keywords
component is non-empty, then additional fields should be
specified only on the first occasion that a particular reference
is cited, and will apply to all citations of that reference.
The opening-text and closing-text component
specifies strings to be used to bracket the label instead of the
strings specified in the bracket-label command. If either
of these components is non-empty, the strings specified in the
bracket-label command will not be used; this behaviour can
be altered using the [ and ] flags. Note that
leading and trailing spaces are significant for these components.
The flags component is a list of non-alphanumeric
characters each of which modifies the treatment of this
particular citation. Unix refer will treat these flags as part of
the keywords and so will ignore them since they are
non-alphanumeric. The following flags are currently recognized:
#
This says to use the label specified by the short-label
command, instead of that specified by the label command.
If no short label has been specified, the normal label will be
used. Typically the short label is used with author-date labels
and consists of only the date and possibly a disambiguating
letter; the # is supposed to be suggestive of a numeric
type of label.
[
Precede opening-text with the first string specified in
the bracket-label command.
]
Follow closing-text with the second string specified in
the bracket-label command.
One advantages of using the [ and ] flags rather
than including the brackets in opening-text and
closing-text is that you can change the style of bracket
used in the document just by changing the bracket-label
command. Another advantage is that sorting and merging of
citations will not necessarily be inhibited if the flags are
used.
If a label is to be inserted into the text, it will be attached
to the line preceding the .[ line. If there is no such
line, then an extra line will be inserted before the .[
line and a warning will be given.
There is no special notation for making a citation to multiple
references. Just use a sequence of citations, one for each
reference. Don’t put anything between the citations. The labels
for all the citations will be attached to the line preceding the
first citation. The labels may also be sorted or merged. See the
description of the <> label expression, and of the
sort-adjacent-labels and abbreviate-label-ranges
command. A label will not be merged if its citation has a
non-empty opening-text or closing-text. However,
the labels for a citation using the ] flag and without any
closing-text immediately followed by a citation using the
[ flag and without any opening-text may be sorted
and merged even though the first citation’s opening-text
or the second citation’s closing-text is non-empty. (If
you wish to prevent this just make the first citation’s
closing-text \&.)
Commands
Commands are contained between lines starting with .R1 and
.R2. Recognition of these lines can be prevented by the
-R option. When a .R1 line is recognized any
accumulated references are flushed out. Neither .R1 nor
.R2 lines, nor anything between them is output.
Commands are separated by newlines or ;s. #
introduces a comment that extends to the end of the line (but
does not conceal the newline). Each command is broken up into
words. Words are separated by spaces or tabs. A word that begins
with " extends to the next " that is not followed
by another ". If there is no such " the word
extends to the end of the line. Pairs of " in a word
beginning with " collapse to a single ". Neither
# nor ; are recognized inside "s. A line can
be continued by ending it with \; this works everywhere
except after a #.
Each command name that is marked with * has an associated
negative command no-name that undoes the effect of
name. For example, the no-sort command specifies
that references should not be sorted. The negative commands take
no arguments.
In the following description each argument must be a single word;
field is used for a single upper or lower case letter
naming a field; fields is used for a sequence of such
letters; m and n are used for a non-negative
numbers; string is used for an arbitrary string;
filename is used for the name of a file.
abbreviate* fields string1 string2 string3 string4
Abbreviate the first names of fields. An initial letter
will be separated from another initial letter by string1,
from the last name by string2, and from anything else
(such as a von or de) by string3. These
default to a period followed by a space. In a hyphenated first
name, the initial of the first part of the name will be separated
from the hyphen by string4; this defaults to a period. No
attempt is made to handle any ambiguities that might result from
abbreviation. Names are abbreviated before sorting and before
label construction.
abbreviate-label-ranges* string
Three or more adjacent labels that refer to consecutive
references will be abbreviated to a label consisting of the first
label, followed by string followed by the last label. This
is mainly useful with numeric labels. If string is omitted
it defaults to -.
accumulate*
Accumulate references instead of writing out each reference as it
is encountered. Accumulated references will be written out
whenever a reference of the form
.[
$LIST$
.]
is encountered, after all input files have been processed, and
whenever .R1 line is recognized.
annotate* field string
field is an annotation; print it at the end of the
reference as a paragraph preceded by the line
.string
If string is omitted it will default to AP; if
field is also omitted it will default to X. Only
one field can be an annotation.
articles string...
string... are definite or indefinite articles, and should
be ignored at the beginning of T fields when sorting.
Initially, the, a and an are recognized as
articles.
bibliography filename...
Write out all the references contained in the bibliographic
databases filename... This command should come last in a
.R1/.R2 block.
bracket-label string1 string2 string3
In the text, bracket each label with string1 and
string2. An occurrence of string2 immediately
followed by string1 will be turned into string3.
The default behaviour is
bracket-label \*([. \*(.] ", "
capitalize fields
Convert fields to caps and small caps.
compatible*
Recognize .R1 and .R2 even when followed by a
character other than space or newline.
database filename...
Search the bibliographic databases filename... For each
filename if an index filename.i created by
indxbib(1) exists, then it will be searched instead; each
index can cover multiple databases.
date-as-label* string
string is a label expression that specifies a string with
which to replace the D field after constructing the label.
See the Label expressions subsection for a description of
label expressions. This command is useful if you do not want
explicit labels in the reference list, but instead want to handle
any necessary disambiguation by qualifying the date in some way.
The label used in the text would typically be some combination of
the author and date. In most cases you should also use the
no-label-in-reference command. For example,
date-as-label D.+yD.y%a*D.-y
would attach a disambiguating letter to the year part of the
D field in the reference.
default-database*
The default database should be searched. This is the default
behaviour, so the negative version of this command is more
useful. refer determines whether the default database
should be searched on the first occasion that it needs to do a
search. Thus a no-default-database command must be given
before then, in order to be effective.
discard* fields
When the reference is read, fields should be discarded; no
string definitions for fields will be output. Initially,
fields are XYZ.
et-al* string m n
Control use of et al in the evaluation of @
expressions in label expressions. If the number of authors needed
to make the author sequence unambiguous is u and the total
number of authors is t then the last t-u
authors will be replaced by string provided that
t-u is not less than m and t is not
less than n. The default behaviour is
et-al " et al" 2 3
include filename
Include filename and interpret the contents as commands.
join-authors string1 string2 string3
This says how authors should be joined together. When there are
exactly two authors, they will be joined with string1.
When there are more than two authors, all but the last two will
be joined with string2, and the last two authors will be
joined with string3. If string3 is omitted, it will
default to string1; if string2 is also omitted it
will also default to string1. For example,
join-authors " and " ", " ", and "
will restore the default method for joining authors.
label-in-reference*
When outputting the reference, define the string [F to be
the reference’s label. This is the default behaviour; so the
negative version of this command is more useful.
label-in-text*
For each reference output a label in the text. The label will be
separated from the surrounding text as described in the
bracket-label command. This is the default behaviour; so
the negative version of this command is more useful.
label string
string is a label expression describing how to label each
reference.
separate-label-second-parts string
When merging two-part labels, separate the second part of the
second label from the first label with string. See the
description of the <> label expression.
move-punctuation*
In the text, move any punctuation at the end of line past the
label. It is usually a good idea to give this command unless you
are using superscripted numbers as labels.
reverse* string
Reverse the fields whose names are in string. Each field
name can be followed by a number which says how many such fields
should be reversed. If no number is given for a field, all such
fields will be reversed.
search-ignore* fields
While searching for keys in databases for which no index exists,
ignore the contents of fields. Initially, fields
XYZ are ignored.
search-truncate* n
Only require the first n characters of keys to be given.
In effect when searching for a given key words in the database
are truncated to the maximum of n and the length of the
key. Initially n is 6.
short-label* string
string is a label expression that specifies an alternative
(usually shorter) style of label. This is used when the #
flag is given in the citation. When using author-date style
labels, the identity of the author or authors is sometimes clear
from the context, and so it may be desirable to omit the author
or authors from the label. The short-label command will
typically be used to specify a label containing just a date and
possibly a disambiguating letter.
sort* string
Sort references according to string. References will
automatically be accumulated. string should be a list of
field names, each followed by a number, indicating how many
fields with the name should be used for sorting. + can be
used to indicate that all the fields with the name should be
used. Also . can be used to indicate the references should
be sorted using the (tentative) label. (The Label
expressions subsection describes the concept of a tentative
label.)
sort-adjacent-labels*
Sort labels that are adjacent in the text according to their
position in the reference list. This command should usually be
given if the abbreviate-label-ranges command has been
given, or if the label expression contains a <>
expression. This will have no effect unless references are being
accumulated.
Label expressions
Label expressions can be evaluated both normally and tentatively.
The result of normal evaluation is used for output. The result of
tentative evaluation, called the tentative label, is used
to gather the information that normal evaluation needs to
disambiguate the label. Label expressions specified by the
date-as-label and short-label commands are not
evaluated tentatively. Normal and tentative evaluation are the
same for all types of expression other than @, *,
and % expressions. The description below applies to normal
evaluation, except where otherwise specified.
field
field n
The n-th part of field. If n is omitted, it
defaults to 1.
’string’
The characters in string literally.
@
All the authors joined as specified by the join-authors
command. The whole of each author’s name will be used. However,
if the references are sorted by author (that is the sort
specification starts with A+), then authors’ last names
will be used instead, provided that this does not introduce
ambiguity, and also an initial subsequence of the authors may be
used instead of all the authors, again provided that this does
not introduce ambiguity. The use of only the last name for the
i-th author of some reference is considered to be
ambiguous if there is some other reference, such that the first
i-1 authors of the references are the same, the
i-th authors are not the same, but the i-th
authors’ last names are the same. A proper initial subsequence of
the sequence of authors for some reference is considered to be
ambiguous if there is a reference with some other sequence of
authors which also has that subsequence as a proper initial
subsequence. When an initial subsequence of authors is used, the
remaining authors are replaced by the string specified by the
et-al command; this command may also specify additional
requirements that must be met before an initial subsequence can
be used. @ tentatively evaluates to a canonical
representation of the authors, such that authors that compare
equally for sorting purpose will have the same representation.
%n
%a
%A
%i
%I
The serial number of the reference formatted according to the
character following the %. The serial number of a
reference is 1 plus the number of earlier references with
same tentative label as this reference. These expressions
tentatively evaluate to an empty string.
expr*
If there is another reference with the same tentative label as
this reference, then expr, otherwise an empty string. It
tentatively evaluates to an empty string.
expr+n
expr-n
The first (+) or last (-) n upper or lower
case letters or digits of expr. Troff special characters
(such as \(’a) count as a single letter. Accent strings
are retained but do not count towards the total.
expr.l
expr converted to lowercase.
expr.u
expr converted to uppercase.
expr.c
expr converted to caps and small caps.
expr.r
expr reversed so that the last name is first.
expr.a
expr with first names abbreviated. Note that fields
specified in the abbreviate command are abbreviated before
any labels are evaluated. Thus .a is useful only when you
want a field to be abbreviated in a label but not in a reference.
expr.y
The year part of expr.
expr.+y
The part of expr before the year, or the whole of
expr if it does not contain a year.
expr.-y
The part of expr after the year, or an empty string if
expr does not contain a year.
expr.n
The last name part of expr.
expr1~expr2
expr1 except that if the last character of expr1 is
- then it will be replaced by expr2.
expr1 expr2
The concatenation of expr1 and expr2.
expr1|expr2
If expr1 is non-empty then expr1 otherwise
expr2.
expr1&expr2
If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise an empty
string.
expr1?expr2:expr3
If expr1 is non-empty then expr2 otherwise
expr3.
<expr>
The label is in two parts, which are separated by expr.
Two adjacent two-part labels which have the same first part will
be merged by appending the second part of the second label onto
the first label separated by the string specified in the
separate-label-second-parts command (initially, a comma
followed by a space); the resulting label will also be a two-part
label with the same first part as before merging, and so
additional labels can be merged into it. Note that it is
permissible for the first part to be empty; this maybe desirable
for expressions used in the short-label command.
(expr)
The same as expr. Used for grouping.
The above expressions are listed in order of precedence (highest
first); & and | have the same precedence.
Macro interface
Each reference starts with a call to the macro ]-. The
string [F will be defined to be the label for this
reference, unless the no-label-in-reference command has
been given. There then follows a series of string definitions,
one for each field: string [X corresponds to field
X. The number register [P is set to 1 if the
P field contains a range of pages. The [T,
[A and [O number registers are set to 1
according as the T, A and O fields end with
one of the characters .?!. The [E number register
will be set to 1 if the [E string contains more than
one name. The reference is followed by a call to the ][
macro. The first argument to this macro gives a number
representing the type of the reference. If a reference contains a
J field, it will be classified as type 1, otherwise
if it contains a B field, it will type 3, otherwise
if it contains a G or R field it will be
type 4, otherwise if contains a I field it will be
type 2, otherwise it will be type 0. The second
argument is a symbolic name for the type: other,
journal-article, book, article-in-book or
tech-report. Groups of references that have been
accumulated or are produced by the bibliography command
are preceded by a call to the ]< macro and followed by
a call to the ]> macro.
bugs
In label
expressions, <> expressions are ignored inside
.char expressions.
see also
indxbib ,
lookbib , lkbib