Provided by: libtext-bibtex-perl_0.71-1build1_amd64 
NAME
Text::BibTeX::Entry - read and parse BibTeX files
SYNOPSIS
use Text::BibTeX; # do not use Text::BibTeX::Entry alone!
# ...assuming that $bibfile and $newbib are both objects of class
# Text::BibTeX::File, opened for reading and writing (respectively):
# Entry creation/parsing methods:
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry;
$entry->read ($bibfile);
$entry->parse ($filename, $filehandle);
$entry->parse_s ($entry_text);
# or:
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry $bibfile;
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry $filename, $filehandle;
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry $entry_text;
# Entry query methods
warn "error in input" unless $entry->parse_ok;
$metatype = $entry->metatype;
$type = $entry->type;
# if metatype is BTE_REGULAR or BTE_MACRODEF:
$key = $entry->key; # only for BTE_REGULAR metatype
$num_fields = $entry->num_fields;
@fieldlist = $entry->fieldlist;
$has_title = $entry->exists ('title');
$title = $entry->get ('title');
# or:
($val1,$val2,...$valn) = $entry->get ($field1, $field2, ..., $fieldn);
# if metatype is BTE_COMMENT or BTE_PREAMBLE:
$value = $entry->value;
# Author name methods
@authors = $entry->split ('author');
($first_author) = $entry->names ('author');
# Entry modification methods
$entry->set_type ($new_type);
$entry->set_key ($new_key);
$entry->set ('title', $new_title);
# or:
$entry->set ($field1, $val1, $field2, $val2, ..., $fieldn, $valn);
$entry->delete (@fields);
$entry->set_fieldlist (\@fieldlist);
# Entry output methods
$entry->write ($newbib);
$entry->print ($filehandle);
$entry_text = $entry->print_s;
# Miscellaneous methods
$entry->warn ($entry_warning);
# or:
$entry->warn ($field_warning, $field);
DESCRIPTION
"Text::BibTeX::Entry" does all the real work of reading and parsing BibTeX files. (Well,
actually it just provides an object-oriented Perl front-end to a C library that does all
that. But that's not important right now.)
BibTeX entries can be read either from "Text::BibTeX::File" objects (using the "read"
method), or directly from a filehandle (using the "parse" method), or from a string (using
"parse_s"). The first is preferable, since you don't have to worry about supplying the
filename, and because of the extra functionality provided by the "Text::BibTeX::File"
class. Currently, this means that you may specify the database structure to which entries
are expected to conform via the "File" class. This lets you ensure that entries follow
the rules for required fields and mutually constrained fields for a particular type of
database, and also gives you access to all the methods of the structured entry class for
this database structure. See Text::BibTeX::Structure for details on database structures.
Once you have the entry, you can query it or change it in a variety of ways. The query
methods are "parse_ok", "type", "key", "num_fields", "fieldlist", "exists", and "get".
Methods for changing the entry are "set_type", "set_key", "set_fieldlist", "delete", and
"set".
Finally, you can output BibTeX entries, again either to an open "Text::BibTeX::File"
object, a filehandle or a string. (A filehandle or "File" object must, of course, have
been opened in write mode.) Output to a "File" object is done with the "write" method, to
a filehandle via "print", and to a string with "print_s". Using the "File" class is
recommended for future extensibility, although it currently doesn't offer anything extra.
METHODS
Entry creation/parsing methods
new ([SOURCE])
Creates a new "Text::BibTeX::Entry" object. If the SOURCE parameter is supplied, it
must be one of the following: a "Text::BibTeX::File" (or descendant class) object, a
filename/filehandle pair, or a string. Calls "read" to read from a
"Text::BibTeX::File" object, "parse" to read from a filehandle, and "parse_s" to read
from a string.
A filehandle can be specified as a GLOB reference, or as an "IO::Handle" (or
descendants) object, or as a "FileHandle" (or descendants) object. (But there's
really no point in using "FileHandle" objects, since "Text::BibTeX" requires Perl
5.004, which always includes the "IO" modules.) You can not pass in the name of a
filehandle as a string, though, because "Text::BibTeX::Entry" conforms to the "use
strict" pragma (which disallows such symbolic references).
The corresponding filename should be supplied in order to allow for accurate error
messages; if you simply don't have the filename, you can pass "undef" and you'll get
error messages without a filename. (It's probably better to rearrange your code so
that the filename is available, though.)
Thus, the following are equivalent to read from a file named by $filename (error
handling ignored):
# good ol' fashioned filehandle and GLOB ref
open (BIBFILE, $filename);
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry ($filename, \*BIBFILE);
# newfangled IO::File thingy
$file = new IO::File $filename;
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry ($filename, $file);
But using a "Text::BibTeX::File" object is simpler and preferred:
$file = new Text::BibTeX::File $filename;
$entry = new Text::BibTeX::Entry $file;
Returns the new object, unless SOURCE is supplied and reading/parsing the entry fails
(e.g., due to end of file) -- then it returns false.
read (BIBFILE)
Reads and parses an entry from BIBFILE, which must be a "Text::BibTeX::File" object
(or descendant). The next entry will be read from the file associated with that
object.
Returns the same as "parse" (or "parse_s"): false if no entry found (e.g., at end-of-
file), true otherwise. To see if the parse itself failed (due to errors in the
input), call the "parse_ok" method.
parse (FILENAME, FILEHANDLE)
Reads and parses the next entry from FILEHANDLE. (That is, it scans the input until
an '@' sign is seen, and then slurps up to the next '@' sign. Everything between the
two '@' signs [including the first one, but not the second one -- it's pushed back
onto the input stream for the next entry] is parsed as a BibTeX entry, with the
simultaneous construction of an abstract syntax tree [AST]. The AST is traversed to
ferret out the most interesting information, and this is stuffed into a Perl hash,
which coincidentally is the "Text::BibTeX::Entry" object you've been tossing around.
But you don't need to know any of that -- I just figured if you've read this far, you
might want to know something about the inner workings of this module.)
The success of the parse is stored internally so that you can later query it with the
"parse_ok" method. Even in the presence of syntax errors, you'll usually get
something resembling your input, but it's usually not wise to try to do anything with
it. Just call "parse_ok", and if it returns false then silently skip to the next
entry. (The error messages printed out by the parser should be quite adequate for the
user to figure out what's wrong. And no, there's currently no way for you to capture
or redirect those error messages -- they're always printed to "stderr" by the
underlying C code. That should change in future releases.)
If no '@' signs are seen on the input before reaching end-of-file, then we've
exhausted all the entries in the file, and "parse" returns a false value. Otherwise,
it returns a true value -- even if there were syntax errors. Hence, it's important to
check "parse_ok".
The FILENAME parameter is only used for generating error messages, but anybody using
your program will certainly appreciate your setting it correctly!
parse_s (TEXT)
Parses a BibTeX entry (using the above rules) from the string TEXT. The string is not
modified; repeatedly calling "parse_s" with the same string will give you the same
results each time. Thus, there's no point in putting multiple entries in one string.
Entry query methods
parse_ok ()
Returns false if there were any serious errors encountered while parsing the entry.
(A "serious" error is a lexical or syntax error; currently, warnings such as
"undefined macro" result in an error message being printed to "stderr" for the user's
edification, but no notice is available to the calling code.)
type ()
Returns the type of the entry. (The `type' is the word that follows the '@' sign;
e.g. `article', `book', `inproceedings', etc. for the standard BibTeX styles.)
metatype ()
Returns the metatype of the entry. (The `metatype' is a numeric value used to
classify entry types into four groups: comment, preamble, macro definition (@string
entries), and regular (all other entry types). "Text::BibTeX" exports four constants
for these metatypes: "BTE_COMMENT", "BTE_PREAMBLE", "BTE_MACRODEF", and
"BTE_REGULAR".)
key ()
Returns the key of the entry. (The key is the token immediately following the opening
`{' or `(' in "regular" entries. Returns "undef" for entries that don't have a key,
such as macro definition (@string) entries.)
num_fields ()
Returns the number of fields in the entry. (Note that, currently, this is not
equivalent to putting "scalar" in front of a call to "fieldlist". See below for the
consequences of calling "fieldlist" in a scalar context.)
fieldlist ()
Returns the list of fields in the entry. In a scalar context, returns a reference to
the object's own list of fields. That way, you can change or reorder the field list
with minimal interference from the class. I'm not entirely sure if this is a good
idea, so don't rely on it existing in the future; feel free to play around with it and
let me know if you get bitten in dangerous ways or find this enormously useful.
exists (FIELD)
Returns true if a field named FIELD is present in the entry, false otherwise.
get (FIELD, ...)
Returns the value of one or more FIELDs, as a list of values. For example:
$author = $entry->get ('author');
($author, $editor) = $entry->get ('author', 'editor');
If a FIELD is not present in the entry, "undef" will be returned at its place in the
return list. However, you can't completely trust this as a test for presence or
absence of a field; it is possible for a field to be present but undefined. Currently
this can only happen due to certain syntax errors in the input, or if you pass an
undefined value to "set", or if you create a new field with "set_fieldlist" (the new
field's value is implicitly set to "undef").
Normally, the field value is what the input looks like after "maximal
processing"--quote characters are removed, whitespace is collapsed (the same way that
BibTeX itself does it), macros are expanded, and multiple tokens are pasted together.
(See bt_postprocess for details on the post-processing performed by btparse.)
For example, if your input file has the following:
@string{of = "of"}
@string{foobars = "Foobars"}
@article{foobar,
title = { The Mating Habits } # of # " Adult " # foobars
}
then using "get" to query the value of the "title" field from the "foobar" entry would
give the string "The Mating Habits of Adult Foobars".
However, in certain circumstances you may wish to preserve the values as they appear
in the input. This is done by setting a "preserve_values" flag at some point; then,
"get" will return not strings but "Text::BibTeX::Value" objects. Each "Value" object
is a list of "Text::BibTeX::SimpleValue" objects, which in turn consists of a simple
value type (string, macro, or number) and the text of the simple value. Various ways
to set the "preserve_values" flag and the interface to both "Value" and "SimpleValue"
objects are described in Text::BibTeX::Value.
value ()
Retuns the single string associated with @comment and @preamble entries. For
instance, the entry
@preamble{" This is a preamble" #
{---the concatenation of several strings}}
would return a value of "This is a preamble---the concatenation of several strings".
If this entry was parsed in "value preservation" mode, then "value" acts like "get",
and returns a "Value" object rather than a simple string.
Author name methods
This is the only part of the module that makes any assumption about the nature of the
data, namely that certain fields are lists delimited by a simple word such as "and", and
that the delimited sub-strings are human names of the "First von Last" or "von Last, Jr.,
First" style used by BibTeX. If you are using this module for anything other than
bibliographic data, you can most likely forget about these two methods. However, if you
are in fact hacking on BibTeX-style bibliographic data, these could come in very handy --
the name-parsing done by BibTeX is not trivial, and the list-splitting would also be a
pain to implement in Perl because you have to pay attention to brace-depth. (Not that it
wasn't a pain to implement in C -- it's just a lot more efficient than a Perl
implementation would be.)
Incidentally, both of these methods assume that the strings being split have already been
"collapsed" in the BibTeX way, i.e. all leading and trailing whitespace removed and
internal whitespace reduced to single spaces. This should always be the case when using
these two methods on a "Text::BibTeX::Entry" object, but these are actually just front
ends to more general functions in "Text::BibTeX". (More general in that you supply the
string to be parsed, rather than supplying the name of an entry field.) Should you ever
use those more general functions directly, you might have to worry about collapsing
whitespace; see Text::BibTeX (the "split_list" and "split_name" functions in particular)
for more information.
Please note that the interface to author name parsing is experimental, subject to change,
and open to discussion. Please let me know if you have problems with it, think it's just
perfect, or whatever.
split (FIELD [, DELIM [, DESC]])
Splits the value of FIELD on DELIM (default: `and'). Don't assume that this works the
same as Perl's builtin "split" just because the names are the same: in particular,
DELIM must be a simple string (no regexps), and delimiters that are at the beginning
or end of the string, or at non-zero brace depth, or not surrounded by whitespace, are
ignored. Some examples might illuminate matters:
if field F is... then split (F) returns...
'Name1 and Name2' ('Name1', 'Name2')
'Name1 and and Name2' ('Name1', undef, 'Name2')
'Name1 and' ('Name1 and')
'and Name2' ('and Name2')
'Name1 {and} Name2 and Name3' ('Name1 {and} Name2', 'Name3')
'{Name1 and Name2} and Name3' ('{Name1 and Name2}', 'Name3')
Note that a warning will be issued for empty names (as in the second example above).
A warning ought to be issued for delimiters at the beginning or end of a string, but
currently this isn't done. (Hmmm.)
DESC is a one-word description of the substrings; it defaults to 'name'. It is only
used for generating warning messages.
names (FIELD)
Splits FIELD as described above, and further splits each name into four components:
first, von, last, and jr.
Returns a list of "Text::BibTeX::Name" objects, each of which represents one name.
Use the "part" method to query these objects; see Text::BibTeX::Name for details on
the interface to name objects (and on name-parsing as well).
For example if this entry:
@article{foo,
author = {John Smith and
Hacker, J. Random and
Ludwig van Beethoven and
{Foo, Bar and Company}}}
has been parsed into a "Text::BibTeX::Entry" object $entry, then
@names = $entry->names ('author');
will put a list of "Text::BibTeX::Name" objects in @names. These can be queried
individually as described in Text::BibTeX::Name; for instance,
@last = $names[0]->part ('last');
would put the list of tokens comprising the last name of the first author into the
@last array: "('Smith')".
Entry modification methods
set_type (TYPE)
Sets the entry's type.
set_metatype (METATYPE)
Sets the entry's metatype (must be one of the four constants "BTE_COMMENT",
"BTE_PREAMBLE", "BTE_MACRODEF", and "BTE_REGULAR", which are all optionally exported
from "Text::BibTeX").
set_key (KEY)
Sets the entry's key.
set (FIELD, VALUE, ...)
Sets the value of field FIELD. (VALUE might be "undef" or unsupplied, in which case
FIELD will simply be set to "undef" -- this is where the difference between the
"exists" method and testing the definedness of field values becomes clear.)
Multiple (FIELD, VALUE) pairs may be supplied; they will be processed in order (i.e.
the input is treated like a list, not a hash). For example:
$entry->set ('author', $author);
$entry->set ('author', $author, 'editor', $editor);
VALUE can be either a simple string or a "Text::BibTeX::Value" object; it doesn't
matter if the entry was parsed in "full post-processing" or "preserve input values"
mode.
delete (FIELD)
Deletes field FIELD from an entry.
set_fieldlist (FIELDLIST)
Sets the entry's list of fields to FIELDLIST, which must be a list reference. If any
of the field names supplied in FIELDLIST are not currently present in the entry, they
are created with the value "undef" and a warning is printed. Conversely, if any of
the fields currently present in the entry are not named in the list of fields supplied
to "set_fields", they are deleted from the entry and another warning is printed.
Entry output methods
write (BIBFILE)
Prints a BibTeX entry on the filehandle associated with BIBFILE (which should be a
"Text::BibTeX::File" object, opened for output). Currently the printout is not
particularly human-friendly; a highly configurable pretty-printer will be developed
eventually.
print (FILEHANDLE)
Prints a BibTeX entry on FILEHANDLE.
print_s ()
Prints a BibTeX entry to a string, which is the return value.
Miscellaneous methods
warn (WARNING [, FIELD])
Prepends a bit of location information (filename and line number(s)) to WARNING,
appends a newline, and passes it to Perl's "warn". If FIELD is supplied, the line
number given is just that of the field; otherwise, the range of lines for the whole
entry is given. (Well, almost -- currently, the line number of the last field is used
as the last line of the whole entry. This is a bug.)
For example, if lines 10-15 of file foo.bib look like this:
@article{homer97,
author = {Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders},
title = {Territorial Imperatives in Modern Suburbia},
journal = {Journal of Suburban Studies},
year = 1997
}
then, after parsing this entry to $entry, the calls
$entry->warn ('what a silly entry');
$entry->warn ('what a silly journal', 'journal');
would result in the following warnings being issued:
foo.bib, lines 10-14: what a silly entry
foo.bib, line 13: what a silly journal
line ([FIELD])
Returns the line number of FIELD. If the entry was parsed from a string, this still
works--it's just the line number relative to the start of the string. If the entry
was parsed from a file, this works just as you'd expect it to: it returns the absolute
line number with respect to the whole file. Line numbers are one-based.
If FIELD is not supplied, returns a two-element list containing the line numbers of
the beginning and end of the whole entry. (Actually, the "end" line number is
currently inaccurate: it's really the the line number of the last field in the entry.
But it's better than nothing.)
filename ()
Returns the name of the file from which the entry was parsed. Only works if the file
is represented by a "Text::BibTeX::File" object---if you just passed a
filename/filehandle pair to "parse", you can't get the filename back. (Sorry.)
SEE ALSO
Text::BibTeX, Text::BibTeX::File, Text::BibTeX::Structure
AUTHOR
Greg Ward <gward@python.net>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 by Gregory P. Ward. All rights reserved. This file is part of
the Text::BibTeX library. This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.