Ubuntu Manpage: nbibtex - make a bibliography for LaTeX

NAME

       nbibtex - make a bibliography for LaTeX

SYNOPSIS

       nbibtex [options] auxname[.aux] [bibname...]

DESCRIPTION

NbibTeX is a drop-in replacement for BibTeX. It reads the top-level auxiliary (.aux) file
that was output during the running of latex(1) or tex(1) and creates a bibliography (.bbl)
file that will be incorporated into the document on subsequent runs of LaTeX or TeX.

NbibTeX looks up, in bibliographic database (.bib) files specified by the \bibliography
command, the entries specified by the \cite and \nocite commands in the LaTeX or TeX
source file. The association of \cite command with .bib entry is made by a simple query
language described below. NbibTeX formats the information from the .bib entries according
to instructions in a bibliography style (.nbs) file (specified by the \bibliographystyle
command, and it outputs the results to the .bbl file.

If the optional bibnames are used, NbibTeX looks in the named bibliographies instead of
those specified by the \bibliography command. A bibname without a slash (/) character
means the same thing it would mean in a \bibliographystyle command: it is looked up
according to the rules of BibTeX. A bibname with a slash character is taken to be the
absolute or relative pathname of a .bib file. Explicit bibnames can be used with the -bib
and -o options to make a paper-specific .bib file from larger .bib files.

The LaTeX manual explains what a LaTeX source file must contain to work with NbibTeX.
Appendix B of the manual describes the format of the .bib files. The `NbibTeXing' document
describes extensions and details of this format, and it gives other useful hints for using
NbibTeX.

OPTIONS

       -min-crossrefs=number
              The -min-crossrefs option defines the  minimum  number  of  crossref  required  for
              automatic inclusion of the crossref'd entry on the citation list; the default is 2.

       -terse Accepted for backward compatibility with BibTeX; NbibTeX is terse by default.

       -permissive
              Enables  NbibTeX  to continue working even when some of the .bib files mentioned in
              the \bibliography command are  missing.   Also  tells  NbibTeX  not  to  object  if
              duplicate entries are found in multiple .bib files.

       -strict
              Tells  NbibTeX  to  complain  about all irregularities it spots in any .bib file it
              parses.  By default,   NbibTeX  (like  BibTeX)  complains  only  about  entries  it
              actually intends to use.

       -o file
              Writes  the bibliography to file instead of to the default auxname.bbl.  If file is
              -, writes to standard output.

       -bib   Instead of writing a bibliography for use by LaTeX, writes  exactly  those  NbibTeX
              entries needed by auxname.  Useful for making paper-specific .bib files.

       -help  Emit a short help message and exit.

       -version
              Emit version information and exit.

EXAMPLES

       To make a normal bibliography for file paper.tex:

              nbibtex paper

       To  use the personal .bib file personal.bib to make a paper-specific bibliography for file
       paper.tex, which should use the command lography{paper}:

              nbibtex -o paper.bib -bib paper personal

       The file personal.bib should be found on the usual BIBINPUTS path.

       To extend the bibliography paper.bib by filling in missing entries from personal.bib:

              nbibtex -permissive -o paper.bib -bib paper paper personal

QUERY LANGUAGE

To specify a paper you wish to cite, classic BibTeX requires an arbitrary key. The
advantage of NbibTeX is that you cite a paper by the contents of the NbibTeX entry.

The citation consists of a sequence of one or more constraints separated by colons.
A constraint may be empty.

A nonempty constraint is of the form key=words, where key is the name of a field in
the NbibTeX entry and words is a sequence of one or more words separated by dashes.
The contraint is satisfied if every word in words is found in the field named by
key. (The key may also be [type], which matches agains the type of the entry, or
*, which looks for words in any field.)

For example, the following queries might match an entry for a useful source on arithmetic:

author=knuth:series=art-programming:volume=2
author=knuth:title=seminumerical:year=1981

As a convenience, keys may be defaulted in up to three constraints. In the first
constraint, the default key is author (or if there is no author, editor). In the second
constraint, the default key is year if words is all digits, and is title otherwise. In
the third constraint, the default key is year if words is all digits, and is [type]
otherwise. So for example, we could have written

knuth:seminumerical:1981

To match a word in words, ΒX uses the Boyer-Moore string-matching algorithm, so longer
words are usually faster.

NbibTeX's query language can be used on the command line by nbibfind(1).

NBIBTEX STYLES AND COMPATIBILITY WITH BibTeX

       Like  BibTeX,  NbibTeX  supports  a  variety  of  "styles" of bibliography.  Each style is
       defined by a program written in Lua, using additional primitives suitable to  construction
       of  bibliographies.  NbibTeX provides the three standard styles in a form suitable for use
       with the natbib package.  Two of these  styles  (abbrvnat  and  unsrtnat)  are  completely
       compatible  with  the  corresponding  BibTeX  styles;  the third style (plainnat) has been
       changed to more closely follow the Chicago Manual  of  Style.   A  compatible  version  is
       available as style plainnatc.

       Additional  styles  may be created by writing new Lua code; for example, an author wishing
       to create a style called mcbride would put a  file  called  mcbride.nbs  (for  New  BibTeX
       Style)  in  the directory /usr/share/nbibtex.  For guidance on what goes into such a file,
       consult the other files in that directory and the literate source code for NbibTeX.

ENVIRONMENT

       For .bib files, NbibTeX searches the directories in the  path  defined  by  the  BIBINPUTS
       environment variable if that is set, otherwise the default.  For details of the searching,
       see tex(1) and kpsewhich(1).

       No special searching is done for the .aux file.

FILES

       /usr/share/nbibtex/*.nbs
              New bibliography style files.

BUGS

       Although I have made some effort in this direction, compatibility  with  BibTeX  does  not
       extend to .bib files containing non-ASCII characters.

AUTHOR

       Norman Ramsey, Harvard University.

                                           15 May 2006                                 NBIBTEX(1)